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E S SAYS 



INTELLECTUAL POWERS OE MAN. 



THOMAS REID, D. D., F. R. S. E. 



ABRIDGED. 



WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS FROM SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON 
AND OTHERS. 



EDITED (fA 

By JAMES WALKER, D. D., 

PROFESSOR OP INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN HARVARD COLLEGE. 



jFourti) fStfftfon. 



CAMBRIDGE : 

PUBLISHED BY JOHN BARTLETT. 

Bookseller to tije aanfbersftg. 

1853. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1850, by 

John Baetleit, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



Gift 
Mrs. Hennen Jennings 
April 26, 1933 



CAMBRIDGE: 

STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BT 

METCALF AND COM PANT, 

PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY. 



fe^ 



EDITOR'S NOTICE. 



The psychology generally taught in England and this 
country for the last fifty years has been that of the Scotch 
school, of which Dr. Reid is the acknowledged head. The 
influence of the same doctrines is also apparent in the im- 
proved state of philosophy in several of the Continental 
nations, and particularly in France. Sir W. Hamilton ded- 
icates his annotated edition of Reid's works to M. Cousin, the 
distinguished philosopher and statesman " through whom Scot- 
land has been again united intellectually to her old political 
ally, and the author's writings (the best result of Scottish 
speculation) made the basis of academical instruction in phi- 
losophy throughout the central nation of Europe." 

The name of Reid, therefore, historically considered, is 
second to none among British psychologists and metaphy- 
sicians, with perhaps the single exception of Locke. His 
Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man have likewise 
intrinsic and peculiar merits, especially as a manual to be 
used by those who are just entering on the study. The 
spirit and tone are unexceptionable ; the style has a fresh- 
ness and an interest which betoken the original thinker ; 
technicalities are also avoided to a great degree, by which 
means, and by the frequent use of familiar and sometimes 



IV EDITORS NOTICE. 

homely comparisons and illustrations, much of the obscurity 
and perplexity, commonly objected to in metaphysical discus- 
sion, is removed. 

The notes are intended either to correct mistakes and sup- 
ply defects in the text, or to bring down the history of the 
speculation to the present day. Most of them are from Sir 
W. Hamilton's edition of E.eid, mentioned above, and are 
marked by his initial. These, together with the extracts oc- 
casionally made from the supplementary dissertations, can 
hardly fail to convince the reader, that, when the whole of 
that work, as yet incomplete, is given to the public, it will 
constitute one of the most important contributions ever made 
to intellectual science. 

In order to make room for these additions, and, at the 
same time, keep the volume within the limits proper for a 
text-book, it has been found necessary materially to abridge 
some portions of the original ; but the omitted passages con- 
sist almost exclusively of repetitions, or of historical or merely 
critical digressions, in which the author did .not excel. On 
account of these changes, the division and numbering of 
the chapters have been altered in several instances, and some 
passages have been transposed. To give greater distinctness 
to the argument or exposition, sections have also been in- 
troduced. 

The references in the notes are generally for beginners, 
and not for proficients. They will be found convenient where 
students are required, under the form of dissertations or foren- 
sics, to collect and weigh the various opinions which have been 
entertained respecting the disputed question. 

Cambridge, February 15, 1850. 



CONTENTS. 



PREFACE, 



PAGE 

. ix 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 
CHAPTER I. 

EXPLICATION OP WORDS, 1 

CHAPTER II. 

OF HYPOTHESES, 10 

CHAPTER III. 

OF ANALOGY, 17 

CHAPTER IV. 

ON THE PROPER MEANS OF KNOWING THE OPERA- 
TIONS OF THE MIND, 23 

CHAPTER V. 

DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND, . . 28 

ESSAY II. 

OF THE POWERS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR EX- 
TERNAL SENSES. 

CHAPTER I. 

OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE, 32 

CHAPTER II. 

HARTLEY'S THEORY OF VIBRATIONS, 40 

a* 



VI CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER III. 

FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE CONNECTION 
BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND IMPRESSIONS MADE ON 
THE ORGANS OF SENSE, 48 

CHAPTER IV. 

OF PERCEPTION, PROPERLY SO CALLED, .... 55 

CHAPTER V. 

THEORIES OF PERCEPTION, 63 

CHAPTER VI. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMON THEORY OF IDEAS, . 127 

CHAPTER VII. 

OF SENSATION, • 140 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION, 150 

CHAPTER IX. 

OF MATTER AND SPACE, . . . . ' . . .168 

CHAPTER X. 

OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE, AND OF BELIEF IN GEN- 
ERAL, 181 

CHAPTER XI. 

OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES, • . .189 

CHAPTER XII. 

OF THE ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES, . . 199 



ESSAY III. 

OF MEMORY. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF THE NATURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THIS FACULTY, 211 



CONTENTS. VU 

CHAPTER II. 

THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF OUR NOTION OF DURA- 
TION, .... 228 

CHAPTER III. 

OF THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF OUR NOTION OF 

PERSONAL IDENTITY, 241 



ESSAY IV. 

OF CONCEPTION. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION IN GEN- 
ERAL, 254 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE TRAIN OF THOUGHT IN THE MIND j OR MEN- 
TAL ASSOCIATION, 279 



ESSAY V. 

OF ABSTRACTION. 

CHAPTER I. 
OF GENERAL WORDS, . . . . . . . .298 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE FORMATION OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS, . 306 

CHAPTER III. 

OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT UNIVERSALS, . 321 



ESSAY VI. 

OF JUDGMENT. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL, 331 



Vlll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER II. 

OF COMMON SENSE, 349 

CHAPTER III. 

OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL, 364 



ESSAY VII. 

OF REASONING. 

CHAPTER I. 
OF REASONING IN GENERAL, AND OF DEMONSTRATION, 422 

CHAPTER II. 

OF PROBABLE REASONING, 436 

CHAPTER III. 
OF MR. hume's skepticism with REGARD TO REASON, 444 



ESSAY VIII. 

OF TASTE. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF TASTE IN GENERAL, 455 

CHAPTER II. 

OF THE OBJECTS OF TASTE, 459 

APPENDIX. 

sir w. Hamilton's doctrine of common sense and 

THEORY OF PERCEPTION. NATURAL REALISM. 

PRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE, 481 



PREFACE. 



I. Distribution of the Sciences.] Human knowledge 
may be reduced to two general heads, according as it 
relates to body or to mind; to things material, or to 
things intellectual. 

The whole system of bodies in the universe, of which 
we know but a very small part, may be called the ma- 
terial world ; the whole system of minds, from the in- 
finite Creator to the meanest creature endowed with 
thought, may be called the intellectual world. These 
are the two great kingdoms of nature* that fall within 
our notice ; and about the one or the other, or things 
pertaining to them, every art, every science, and every 
human thought are employed ; nor can the boldest 
flight of imagination carry us beyond their limits. 

Many things there are, indeed, regarding the nature 
and the structure both of body and of mind, which our 
faculties cannot reach ; many difficulties which the 



* The term nature is used sometimes in a wider, sometimes in a nar- 
rower extension. When employed in its most extensive meaning, it em- 
braces the two worlds of mind and matter. When employed in its more 
restricted signification, it is a synonyme for the latter only, and is then 
used in contradistinction to the former. In the Greek philosophy, the 
word (f)vcris was general in its meaning ; and the great branch of philoso- 
phy styled physical or physiological included under it, not only the sciences 
of matter, but also those of mind. With us the term nature is more vague- 
ly extensive than the terms physics, physical, physiology, physiological, or even 
than the adjective natural ; whereas, in the philosophy of Germany, Natur, 
and its correlatives, whether of Greek or Latin derivation, are, in general, 
expressive of the world of matter, in contrast to the world of intelligence. 
— H. 



X PREFACE. 

ablest philosopher cannot resolve ; but of other natures, 
if any other there be, we have no knowledge, no con- 
ception at all. 

That every thing that exists must be either corporeal 
or incorporeal, is evident. But it is not so evident, that 
every thing that exists must either be corporeal or en- 
dowed with thought. Whether there be in the universe 
beings which are neither extended, solid, and inert, like 
body, nor active and intelligent, like mind, seems to be 
beyond the reach of our knowledge. There appears to 
be a vast interval between body and mind ; and whether 
there be any intermediate nature that connects them to- 
gether, we know not. 

We have no reason to ascribe intelligence, or even 
sensation, to plants; yet there appears in them an ac- 
tive force and energy, which cannot be the result of any 
arrangement or combination of inert matter. The 
same thing may be said of those powers by which ani- 
mals are nourished and grow, by which matter gravi- 
tates, by which magnetical and electrical bodies attract 
and repel each other, and by which the parts of solid 
bodies cohere. 

Some have conjectured, that the phenomena of the 
material world which require active force are produced 
by the continual operation of intelligent beings. Others 
have conjectured, that there may be in the universe 
beings that are active ivithout intelligence, which, as a 
kind of incorporeal machinery, contrived by the Su- 
preme Wisdom, perform their destined task without 
any knowledge or intention. But, laying aside conjec- 
ture, and all pretences to determine in things beyond 
our reach, we must rest in this, — that body and mind 
are the only kinds of being of which we can have any 
knowledge, or can form any conception. If there be 
other kinds, they are not discoverable by the faculties 
which God has given us ; and, with regard to us, are as 
if they were not. 

As, therefore, all our knowledge is confined to body 
and mind, or things belonging to them, there are two 
great branches of philosophy, one relating to body, the 



PREFACE. XI 

other to mind. The properties of body, and the laws 
that obtain in the material system, are the objects of 
natural philosophy, as that term is now used. The 
branch which treats of the nature and operations of 
minds has by some been called pneumatology .* And to 
the one or the other of these branches, the principles of 
all the sciences belong. 

What variety there may be of minds or thinking 
beings throughout this vast universe, we cannot pre- 
tend to say. We dwell in a little corner of God's do- 
minion, disjoined from the rest of it. The globe which 
we inhabit is but one of seven planets that encircle our 
sun. What various orders of beings may inhabit the 
other six, their secondaries, and the comets belonging 
to our system, and how many other suns may be en- 
circled with like systems, are things altogether hid from 
us. Although human reason and industry have dis- 
covered, with great accuracy, the order and distances 
of the planets, and the laws of their motion, we have 
no means of corresponding with them. That they 
may be the habitation of animated beings is very prob- 
able ; but of the nature or powers of their inhabitants, 
we are perfectly ignorant. Every man is conscious of 
a thinking principle or mind in himself, and we have 
sufficient evidence of a like principle in other men. 
The actions of brute animals show that they have 
some thinking principle, though of a nature far inferior 
to the human mind. And every thing about us may 
convince us of the existence of a Supreme Mind, the 
Maker and Governor of the universe. These are all 
the minds of which reason can give us any certain 
Knowledge. 

II. General Prejudice against the Study of Psycholo- 
gy.] The mind of man is the noblest work of God 
which reason discovers to us, and therefore, on account 

* Now properly superseded by the term psychology ; to which no com- 
petent objection can be made, and which affords — what the various 
clumsy periphrases in use do not — a convenient adjective, psychological. 
— H. 



Xll PREFACE. 

of its dignity, deserves our study. It must, indeed, be 
acknowledged, that although it is of all objects the 
nearest to us, and seems the most within our reach, 
it is very difficult to attend to its operations, so as to 
form a distinct notion of them ; and on that account 
there is no branch of knowledge in which the inge- 
nious and speculative have fallen into so great errors, 
and even absurdities. These errors and absurdities 
have given rise to a general prejudice against all in- 
quiries of this nature ; and because ingenious men 
have, for many ages, given different and contradictory 
accounts of the powers of the mind, it is concluded that 
all speculations concerning them are chimerical and 
visionary. 

But whatever effect this prejudice may have with 
superficial thinkers, the judicious will not be apt to be 
carried away with it. About two hundred years ago 
the opinions of men in natural philosophy were as 
various and as contradictory as they are now concern- 
ing the powers of the mind. Galileo, Torricelli, Kep- 
ler, Bacon, and Newton had the same discouragement 
in their attempts to throw light upon the material sys- 
tem, as we have with regard to the intellectual. If 
they had been deterred by such prejudices, we should 
never have reaped the benefit of their discoveries, which 
do honor to human nature, and will make their names 
immortal. The motto which Lord Bacon prefixed to 
some of his writings was worthy of his genius, Inve- 
niam viam autfaciam. 

There is a natural order in the progress of the sci- 
ences, and good reasons may be assigned why the 
philosophy of body should be elder sister to that of 
mind, and of a quicker growth ; but the last has the 
principle of life no less than the first, and will grow 
up, though slowly, to maturity. The remains of an- 
cient philosophy upon this subject are venerable ruins, 
carrying the marks of genius and industry, sufficient 
to inflame, but not to satisfy, our curiosity. In later 
ages, Descartes was the first that pointed out the 
road we ought to take in these dark regions. Male- 



PREFACE. X1U 

branche, Arnauld, Locke, Berkeley, Bu frier, Hutche- 
son, Butler, Hume, Price, Lord Karnes, have labored 
to make discoveries ; nor have they labored in vain. 
For, however different and contrary their conclusions 
are, however skeptical some of them, they have all 
given new light, and helped to clear the way for their 
successors. 

We ought never to despair of human genius, but 
rather to hope, that, in time, it may produce a system 
of the powers and operations of the human mind, no 
less certain than those of optics or astronomy. 

III. Grounds on which the Study is recommended.'] 
This is the more devoutly to be wished, as a distinct 
knowledge of the powers of the mind would undoubt- 
edly give great light to many other branches of science. 
Mr. Hume has justly observed, that " all the sciences 
have a relation to human nature ; and, however wide 
any of them may seem to run from it, they still re- 
turn back by one passage or another. This is the cen- 
tre and capitol of the sciences, which being once masters 
of, we may easily extend our conquests everywhere." 

The faculties of our minds are the tools and engines 
we must use in every disquisition ; and the better we 
understand their nature and force, the more success- 
fully we shall be able to apply them. Mr. Locke gives 
this account of the occasion of his entering upon his 
Essay concerning Human Understanding: — "Five or 
six friends," says he, " meeting at my chamber, and 
discoursing on a subject very remote from this, found 
themselves quickly at a stand, by the difficulties that 
rose on every side. After we had for a while puzzled 
ourselves, without coming any nearer to a resolution 
of those doubts that perplexed us, it came into my 
thoughts that we took a wrong course ; and that, 
before we set ourselves upon inquiries of that nature, 
it was necessary to examine our own abilities, and 
see what objects our understandings were fitted or not 
fitted to deal with. This I proposed to the company, 
who all readily assented ; and thereupon it was agreed 
b 



XIV PREFACE. 

that this should be our first inquiry." If this be com- 
monly the cause of perplexity in those disquisitions 
which have least relation to the mind, it must be so 
much more in those that have an immediate connec- 
tion with it. 

The sciences may be distinguished into two classes, 
according as they pertain to the material or to the in- 
tellectual world. The various parts of natural philoso- 
phy, the mechanical arts, chemistry, medicine, and 
agriculture, belong to the first ; but to the last belong 
grammar, logic, rhetoric, natural theology, morals, ju- 
risprudence, law, politics, and the fine arts. The 
knowledge of the human mind is the root from which 
these grow and draw their nourishment* Whether, 
therefore, we consider the dignity of this subject, or its 
subserviency to science in general, and to the noblest 
branches of science in particular, it highly deserves to 
be cultivated. 

* It is justly observed by M. Jouffroy, that the division here enounced 
is not in principle identical with that previously propounded. — H. 

Jouffroy objects to the distinction made by the Scotch philosophers be- 
tween the physical sciences, and the moral or philosophical sciences, as not 
being sufficiently exact and precise. He says : — "In this world there are 
two orders of phenomena perfectly distinct, — physical phenomena, and in- 
tellectual and moral phenomena, which I shall call, for brevity's sake, ma- 
terial phenomena and mental phenomena. It is by the senses and in the ex- 
ternal world that we apprehend and know the first ; it is by consciousness 
and within our own minds that we attain to the second, for in the theatre 
of consciousness alone are we able to observe them immediately and in 
themselves. Elsewhere we see the effects or the material symbols of men- 
tal phenomena, but'we could not comprehend the cause of these effects, or 
the meaning- of these symbols, except by the knowledge which we first ac- 
quire in ourselves of this order of phenomena. Now every possible scien- 
tific question is resolved by a knowledge of the laws of one or the other of 
these two orders of phenomena. Every question which finds its solution 
in the laws of material phenomena belongs to physics; every question 
which finds its solution in the laws of mental phenomena belongs to philos- 
ophy ; every question, in fine, the solution of which presupposes at the 
same time a knowledge of the laws of some material phenomena and of 
some mental phenomena, is mixed, and partakes of the double nature of 
philosophical questions and physical questions. On what, then, depends 
the nature of any given question, and consequently that of the science 
which is to resolve it ? On the nature of the phenomena ; and as these 
phenomena are perfectly distinct, and apprehended by faculties which are 
equally so, the separation established by common sense between the philo- 
sophical sciences and the physical sciences is at once completely justified, 
and clearly explained and defined." — Preface to his (Euvres Completes de 
Tliomas Reid, p. xlii. — Ed. 



PREFACE. XV 

A very elegant writer on the sublime and beautiful 
concludes his account of the passions thus : — " The 
variety of the passions is great, and worthy, in every 
branch of that variety, of the most diligent investiga- 
tion. The more accurately we search into the human 
mind, the stronger traces we everywhere find of His 
wisdom iv ho made it. If a discourse on the use of 
the parts of the body may be considered as a hymn 
to the Creator, the use of the passions, which are the 
organs of the mind, cannot be barren of praise to Him, 
nor unproductive to ourselves of that noble and un- 
common union of science and admiration, $vhich a 
contemplation of the works of Infinite Wisdom alone 
can afford to a rational mind ; whilst referring to Him 
whatever we find of right, or good, or fair, in our- 
selves, discovering his strength and wisdom even in 
our own weakness and imperfection, honoring them 
where we discover them clearly, and adoring their 
profundity where we are lost in our search, we may be 
inquisitive without impertinence, and elevated without 
pride ; we may be admitted, if I may dare to say so, 
into the counsels of the Almighty, by a consideration 
of his works. This elevation of the mind ought to be 
the principal end of all our studies, which, if they do 
not in some measure effect, they are of very little ser- 
vice to us."* 



* Burke's Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, Part I. Sect. 
XIX. 

For ampler discussion of the topics in this Preface, see Descartes, Dts~ 
cours de la Mithode. Stewart, Elements of the Philosophy of the Human 
Mind, Introduction ; and Philosophical Essays, Preliminary Dissertation. 
Brown, Lectures on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. I.- IV. Cou- 
sin, Cours de 1828, Leqons I. et II. This volume has been translated into 
English by Mr. Linberg, under the title of Introduction to the. History of 
Philosophy. Jouffroy, Prefaces to his Esquisses de Philosophic Morale de 
Dugald Steivart, and CEuvres de Reid. Mr. Ripley has given an English 
version of the former in his Philosophical Miscellanies, Vol. II. Sir W. 
Hamilton says also of the latter, that it " will soon be made generally ac- 
cessible to the British public by a highly competent translator." 

On the division and organization of the sciences, and the relation of psy- 
chology to the rest, compare Jouffroy, Nouveaux Mi'langes Philosophiques. 
Comte, Philosophic Positive, Le«;on II. Coleridge, General Introduction to 
ZTie Encyclopaedia Metropolitana. — Ed. 



ESSAYS 

ON THE 

INTELLECTUAL POWERS OE MAN. 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

CHAPTER I. 

EXPLICATION OF WOEDS. 

I. On the Definition of Terms.] There is no greater 
impediment to the advancement of knowledge than the 
ambiguity of words. To this chiefly it is owing that 
we find sects and parties in most branches of science, 
and disputes, which are carried on from age to age, 
without being brought to an issue. 

Sophistry has been more effectually excluded from 
mathematics and natural philosophy than from other 
sciences. In mathematics it had no place from the 
beginning; mathematicians' having had the wisdom to 
define accurately the terms they use, and to lay down, as 
axioms, the first principles on which their reasoning is 
grounded. Accordingly, we find no parties among 
mathematicians, and hardly any disputes.* 

In natural philosophy there was no less sophistry, no 
less dispute and uncertainty, than in other sciences, 
until, about a century and a half ago, this science 
began to be built upon the foundation of clear defini- 

* It was not the superior wisdom of mathematicians, but the simple and 
palpable character of their object-matter, which determined the differ- 
ence. — H. 

1 



2 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

tions and self-evident axioms. Since that time, the 
science, as if watered with the dew of heaven, has 
grown apace; disputes have ceased, truth has prevailed, 
and the science has received greater increase in two 
centuries than in two thousand years before. 

It were to be wished that this method, which has 
been so successful in those branches of science, were 
attempted in others ; for definitions and axioms are the 
foundations of all science. But that definitions may 
not be sought where no definition can be given, nor 
logical definitions be attempted where the subject does 
not admit of them, it may be proper to lay down some 
general principles concerning definition, for the sake of 
those who are less conversant in this branch of logic. 

When one undertakes to explain any art or science, 
he will have occasion to use many words that are com- 
mon to all who use the same language, and some that 
are peculiar to that art or science. Words of the last 
kind are called terms of the art, and ought to be dis- 
tinctly explained, that their meaning may be under- 
stood. 

A definition is nothing else but an explication of the 
meaning of a word, by words whose meaning is already 
known. Hence it is evident, that every word cannot be 
defined; for the definition must consist of words; and 
there could be no definition, if there were not words 
previously understood without definition. Common 
words, therefore, ought to be used in their common ac- 
ceptation ; and when they have different acceptations 
in common language, these, when it is necessary, ought 
to be distinguished. But they require no definition. 
It is sufficient to define words that are uncommon, or 
that are used in an uncommon meaning. 

It may further be observed, that there are many 
words which, though they may need explication, cannot 
be logically defined. A logical definition, that is, a 
strict and proper definition, must express the kind 
(genus) of the thing defined, and the specific difference 
by which the species defined is distinguished from every 
other species belonging to that kind. It is natural to 



EXPLICATION OF WORDS. O 

the mind of man to class things under various kinds, 
and again to subdivide every kind into its various 
species. A species may often be subdivided into sub- 
ordinate species, and then it. is considered as a kind. 

From what has been said of logical definition, it is 
evident that no word can be logically defined which 
does not denote a species ; because such things only 
can have a specific difference ; and a specific difference 
is essential to a logical definition. On this account 
there can be no logical definition of individual things, 
such as London or Paris. Individuals are distinguished 
either by proper names, or by accidental circumstances 
of time or place ; but they have no specific difference ; 
and therefore, though they may be known by proper 
names, or may be described by circumstances or rela- 
tions, they cannot be defined. It is no less evident, 
that the most general words cannot be logically defined, 
because there is not a more general term of which they 
are a species. 

Nay, we cannot define every species of tilings, be- 
cause it happens sometimes that we have not words to 
express the specific difference. Thus a scarlet color is, 
no doubt, a species of color; but how shall we express 
the specific difference by which scarlet is distinguished 
from green or blue? The difference between them is 
immediately perceived by the eye ; but we have not 
words to express it. These things we are taught by 
logic. 

Without having recourse to the principles of logic, 
we may easily be satisfied that words cannot be defined 
which signify things perfectly simple, and void of all 
composition. This observation, I think, was first made 
by Descartes, and afterwards more fully illustrated by 
Locke.* But however obvious it appears to be, many 



* This is incorrect. Descartes has little and Locke no title to praise 
for this observation It had been made by Aristotle, and after him by 
many others ; while, subsequent to Descartes, and previous to Locke, Pas- 
cal and the Port-Koyal logicians, to say nothing of a paper of Leibnitz, in 
1681, had reduced it to a matter of commonplace. In this instance Locke 
can, indeed, be proved a borrower. Mr. Stewart, Philosophical Essays, Note 



4 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

instances may be given of great philosophers who 
have perplexed and darkened the subjects they have 
treated, by not knowing or not attending to it. 

When men attempt to define things which cannot 
be defined, their definitions will always be either ob- 
scure or false. It was one of the capital defects of 
Aristotle's philosophy, that he pretended to define the 
simplest things, which neither can be nor need to be 
defined ; such as time and motion. Among modern 
philosophers, I know none that has abused definition 
so much as Wolf, the famous German philosopher, 
who, in a work on the human mind, called Psychologia 
Empirica, consisting of many hundred propositions, 
fortified by demonstrations, with a proportional accom- 
paniment of definitions, corollaries, and scholia, has 
given so many definitions of things which cannot be 
defined, and so many demonstrations of things self- 
evident, that the greatest part of the work consists of 
tautology, and ringing changes upon words. 

II. Explication of some of the most frequently recur- 
ring Terms in Psychology.] There is no subject in 
which there is more frequent occasion to use words 
that cannot be logically defined, than in treating of the 
powers and operations of the mind. The simplest 
operations of our minds must all be expressed by -words 
of this kind. No man can explain by a logical defini- 
tion what it is to think, to apprehend, to believe, to will, 
to desire. Every man who understands the language 
has some notion of the meaning of these words ; and 
every man who is capable of reflection may, by attend- 
ing to the operations of his own mind which are signi- 
fied by them, form a clear and distinct notion of them ; 
but they cannot be logically defined. 

Since, therefore, it is often impossible to define words 
which we must use on this subject, we must as much 



A, is -wrong in thinking that, after Descartes, Lord Stair is the earliest 
philosopher hy whom this logical principle was enounced; for Stair, as 
a writer, is subsequent to the authors adduced. — H. 



EXPLICATION OF WORDS. O 

as possible use common words in their common accepta- 
tion, pointing out their various senses where they are 
ambiguous ; and when we are obliged to use words less 
common, we must endeavour to explain them as well 
as we can, without affecting to give logical definitions, 
when the nature of the thing does not admit of them. 
The following observations on the meaning of cer- 
tain words are intended to supply, as fax as we can, 
the want of definitions, by preventing ambiguity or 
obscurity in the use of them. 

1. The Mind. — By the mind of a man we under- 
stand that in him which thinks, remembers, reasons, 
wills. The essence both of body and of mind is un- 
known to us. We know certain properties of the first, 
and certain operations of the last, and by these only 
we can define or describe them. We define body to be 
that which is extended, solid, movable, divisible. In like 
manner we define mind to be that which thinks. We 
are conscious that we think, and that we have a variety 
of thoughts of different kinds ; such as seeing, hearing, 
remembering, deliberating, resolving, loving, hating, 
and many other kinds of thought, all which we are 
taught by nature to attribute to one internal principle ; 
and this principle of thought we call the mind or soul 
of a man. 

2. Operations of the Mind. — By the operations * of 
the mind, we understand every mode of thinking of 
which we are conscious. 

It deserves our notice, that the various modes of 
thinking have always, and in all languages, as far as 
we know, been called by the name of operations of the 
mind, or by names of the same import. To body we 
ascribe various properties, but not operations, properly 
so called ; it is extended, divisible, movable, inert ; it 
continues in any state in which it is put ; every change 
of its state is the effect of some force impressed upon 
it, and is exactly proportional to the force impressed, 



* Operation, act, energy, are nearly convertible terms ; and are opposed to 
faculty (of which anon), as the actual to the potential.— H. 
1* 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



and in the precise direction of that force. These are 
the general properties of matter, and these are not 
operations ; on the contrary, they all imply its being a 
dead, inactive "thing, which moves only as it is moved, 
and acts only by being acted upon. 

But the mind is, from its very nature, a living and 
active being. Every thing we know of it implies life 
and active energy ; and the reason why all its modes 
of thinking are called its operations is, that in all, or in 
most of them, it is not merely passive, as body is, but 
is really and properly active. 

In all ages, and in all languages, ancient and modern, 
the various modes of thinking have been expressed by 
words of active signification, such as seeing, hearing, 
reasoning, willing, and the like. It seems, therefore, to 
be the natural judgment of mankind, that the mind is 
active in its various ways of thinking ; and for this 
reason they are called its operations, and are expressed 
by active verbs. 

It may be made a question, What regard is to be 
paid to this natural judgment ? May it not be a vul- 
gar error? Philosophers who think so have, no doubt, 
a right to be heard. But until it is proved that the 
mind is not active in thinking, but merely passive, the 
common language with regard to its operations ought 
to be used, and ought not to give place to a phraseology 
invented by philosophers, which implies its being merely 
passive. 

3. Powers and Faculties of the Mind. — The words 
power and faculty, which are often used in speaking of 
the mind, need little explication. Every operation 
supposes a power in the being that operates ; for to 
suppose any thing to operate which has no power to 
operate is manifestly absurd. But, on the other hand, 
there is no absurdity in supposing a being to have 
power to operate when it does not operate. Thus, I 
may have power to walk when I sit, or to speak when 
I am silent. Every operation, therefore, implies power ; 
but the power does not imply the operation. 

The faculties of the mind, and its powers, are often 



EXPLICATION OF WORDS. 7 

used as synonymous expressions. But as most syno- 
nymes have some minute distinction that deserves 
notice, I apprehend that the word faculty is most prop- 
erly applied to those powers of the mind which are 
original and natural, and which make a part of the 
constitution of the mind. There are other powers 
which are acquired by use, exercise, or study, which are 
not called faculties, but habits. There must be some- 
thing in the constitution of the mind necessary to our 
being able to acquire habits, and this is commonly 
called capacity* 

4. Subject and Object. — We frequently meet with a 
distinction, in writers upon this subject, between things 
in the mind and things external to the mind. The 
powers, faculties, and operations of the mind are things 
in the mind. Every thing is said to be in the mind of 
which the mind is the subject. It is self-evident, that 
Jihere are some things which cannot exist without a 
subject to which they belong, and of which they are 
attributes. Thus, color must be in something colored ; 
figure in something figured; thought can only be in 
something that thinks ; wisdom and virtue cannot exist 
but in some being that is wise and virtuous. When, 
therefore, we speak of things in the mind, we under- 
stand by this, things of which the mind is the subject. 
Excepting the mind itself and things in the mind, all 
other things are said to be external. It ought, there- 
fore, to be remembered, that this distinction between 
things in the mind and things external is not meant to 
signify the place of the things we speak of, but their 
subject. 

There is a figurative sense in which things are said 
to be in the mind, which it is sufficient barely to men- 
tion. We say, Such a thing was not in my mind, 



* These terms properly stand in the following relations : — powers are 
active and passive, natural and acquired. Powers natural and active are 
called faculties ; powers natural and passive, capacities or receptivities; 
powers acquired are habits, and habit is used both in an active and in a 
passive sense. The power, again, of acquiring a habit, is called a dispo- 
sition. — II . 



8 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

meaning no more than that we had not the least thought 
of it. By a figure, we put the thing for the thought of 
it. In this sense, external things are in the mind as 
often as they are the objects of our thought. 

Most of the operations of the mind, from their very 
nature, must have objects to which they are directed, 
and about which they are employed. He that perceives 
must perceive something ; and that which he perceives 
is called the object of his perception. To perceive, 
without having any object of perception, is impossible. 
The mind that perceives, the object perceived, and the 
operation of perceiving that object, are distinct things, 
and are distinguished in the structure of all languages. 
In this sentence, " I see or perceive the moon," / is the 
person or mind; the active verb see denotes the operation 
of that mind, and the moon denotes the object. "What 
we have said of perceiving is equally applicable to 
most operations of the mind. Such operations are, in, 
all languages, expressed by active transitive verbs ; and 
we know that, in all languages, such verbs require a 
thing or person, which is the agent, and a noun follow- 
ing in an oblique case, which is the object. Whence 
it is evident that all mankind, both those who have 
contrived language, and those who use it with under- 
standing, have distinguished these three things as dif- 
ferent, — to wit, the operations of the mind, which are 
expressed by active verbs, the mind itself, which is the 
nominative to those verbs, and the object, which is, in 
the oblique case, governed by them.* 

* Subject and object are correlative terms. The former is properly id in 
quo; the latter, id circa quod. Hence, in psychological language, the sub- 
ject, absolutely, is the mind that knows or thinks, — i. e. the mind con- 
sidered as the subject of knowledge or thought ; the object, that which is 
known, or thought about. The adjectives subjective and objective are con- 
venient, if not indispensable expressions. 

The antithesis between myself and what is not myself is sometimes express- 
ed by an awkward use of the pronoun I. In Engiish we cannot say the I 
and the not-I so happily as the French le moi and le non-moi, or even the 
German das Ich and das nicht-Ich. The ambiguity arising from the iden- 
tity of sound between the I and the eye would of itself preclude the ordi- 
nary employment of the former. TJie ego and the non-ego are the best 
terms we can use ; and as the expressions are scientific, it is perhaps no loss 
that their technical precision is guarded by their non-vernacularity. — H. 



EXPLICATION OF WORDS. 9 

5. Idea. — "When, in common language, we speak of 
having an idea of any thing, we mean no more by that 
expression than thinking of it. The vulgar allow, that 
this expression implies a mind that thinks, an act of 
that mind which we call thinking, and an object about 
which it thinks. But, besides these three, the philoso- 
pher conceives that there is a fourth, — to wit, the idea, 
which is the immediate object. The idea is in the mind 
itself, and can have no existence but in the mind that 
thinks ; but the remote or mediate object may be some- 
thing external, as the sun or moon ; it may be some- 
thing past or future ; it may be something which never 
existed. This is the philosophical meaning of the 
word idea ; and we may observe, that this meaning of 
that word is built upon a philosophical opinion ; for, if 
philosophers had not believed that there are such im- 
mediate objects of all our thoughts in the mind, they 
would never have used the word idea to express them.* 

I shall only add on this article, that, although I may 
have occasion to use the word idea in this philosophical 
sense in explaining the opinions of others, I shall have 
no occasion to use it in expressing my own, because I 
believe ideas, taken in this sense, to be a mere fiction 
of philosophers. And in the popular meaning of the 
word there is the less occasion to use it, because the 
English words thought, notion, apprehension, answer the 
purpose as well as the Greek word idea, with this ad- 
vantage, that they are less ambiguous. There is, indeed, 
a meaning of the word idea, which I think most agree- 
able to its use in ailcient philosophy, and which I would 
willingly adopt, if use, the arbiter of language, did per- 
mit. But this will come to be explained afterwards. 

I have premised these observations on the meaning 
of certain words that frequently occur in treating of 
this subject, for two reasons : first, that I may be the 

* As we proceed, we shall have frequent occasion to notice the limited 
meaning attached by Eeid to the term idea, viz. something in or present to 
the mind, but not a mere modification of the mind ; and also his error in 
supposing that all the philosophers who accepted the theory of ideas ac- 
cepted it under this crude form. — Ed. 



10 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

better understood when I use them ; and secondly, that 
those who would make any progress in this branch of 
science may accustom themselves to attend very care- 
fully to the meaning of words that are used in it. They 
may be assured of this, that the ambiguity of words, 
and the vague and improper application of them, have 
thrown more darkness upon this subject than the sub- 
tilty and intricacy of things. 

When we use common words, we ought to use them 
in the sense in which they are most commonly used by 
the best and purest writers in the language ; and when. 
we have occasion to enlarge or restrict the meaning of 
a common word, or to give it more precision than it 
has in common language, the reader ought to have 
warning of this, otherwise we shall impose upon our- 
selves and upon him. 

Other words that need explication shall be explained 
as they occur.* 



1* 

CHAPTER II. 

OF HYPOTHESES. 

I. Proneness of Philosophers to build on Hypotheses.] 
Every branch of human knowledge has its proper prin- 
ciples, its proper foundation and method of reasoning ; 
and if we endeavour to build it upon any other foun- 
dation, it will never stand firm and stable. Thus the 
historian builds upon testimony, and rarely indulges 
conjecture. The antiquarian mixes conjecture with 
testimony ; and the former often makes the larger in- 
gredient. The mathematician pays not the least regard 

* As a convenient manual for the explication of technical terms in psy- 
chology we can recommend Isaac Taylor's Elements of Thouyht ; or, Con- 
cise Explanations {alphabetically arranged) of the Principal Terms employed 
in the Several Branches of Intellectual Philosophy. Still better for this pur- 
pose is the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, now in course of publi- 
cation. — Ed. 



OF HYPOTHESES. 11 

either to testimony or conjecture, but deduces every- 
thing, by demonstrative reasoning, from his definitions 
and axioms. Indeed, whatever is built upon conjec- 
ture is improperly called science ; for conjecture may 
beget opinion, but cannot produce knowledge. Natu- 
ral philosophy must be built upon the phenomena of 
the material system, discovered by observation and ex- 
periment. 

When men first began to philosophize, that is, to 
carry their thoughts beyond the objects of sense, and to 
inquire into the causes of things, and the secret opera- 
tions of nature, it was very natural for them to indulge 
conjecture ; nor was it to be expected that, in many 
ages, they should discover the proper and scientific way 
of proceeding in philosophical disquisitions. Accord- 
ingly, we find that the most ancient systems in every 
branch of philosophy were nothing but the conjectures 
of men famous for their wisdom, whose fame gave 
authority to their opinions. Thus, in early ages, wise 
men conjectured that this earth is a vast plain, sur- 
rounded on all hands by a boundless ocean ; that from 
this ocean the sun, moon, and stars emerge at their 
rising, and plunge into it again at their setting. 

With regard to the mind, men in their rudest state 
are apt to conjecture, that the principle of life in a man 
is his breath ; because the most obvious distinction be- 
tween a living and a dead man is, that the one breathes 
and the other does not. To this it is owing, that, in 
ancient languages, the word which denotes the soul is 
that which properly signifies breath or air. 

As men advance in knowledge, their first conjectures 
appear silly and childish, and give place to others which 
tally better with later observations and discoveries. 
Thus, one system of philosophy succeeds another, with- 
out any claim to superior merit but this, that it is a 
more ingenious system of conjectures, and accounts 
better for common appearances. 

To omit many ancient systems of this kind, Des- 
cartes, about the middle of the last century, dissatisfied 
with the materia prima, the substantial forms, and the 



12 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

occult qualities of the Peripatetics, conjectured boldly, 
that the heavenly bodies of our system are carried 
round by a vortex or whirlpool of subtile matter, just 
as straws and chaff are carried round in a tub of water. 
He conjectured that the soul is seated in a small gland 
in the brain, called the pineal gland; that there, as in 
her chamber of presence, she receives intelligence of 
every thing that affects the senses, by means of a subtile 
fluid contained in the nerves, called the animal spirits ; 
and that she despatches these animal spirits, as her 
messengers, to put in motion the several muscles of the 
body, as there is occasion.* By such conjectures as 
these, Descartes could account for every phenomenon 
in nature in such a plausible manner as gave satisfac- 
tion to a great part of the learned world for more than 
half a century. 

Such conjectures in philosophical matters have com- 
monly got the name of hypotheses or theories.^ And 
the invention of an hypothesis, founded on some slight 
probabilities, which accounts for many appearances of 
nature, has been considered as the highest attainment 
of a philosopher. If the hypothesis hangs well to- 
gether, is embellished by a lively imagination, and 
serves to account for common appearances, it is con- 
sidered by many as having all the qualities that should 
recommend it to our belief, and all that ought to be 
required in a philosophical system. 

There is such proneness in men of genius to invent 

* It is not, however, to be supposed that Descartes allowed the soul to 
be seated by local presence in any part of the body ; for the smallest point 
of body is still extended, and mind is absolutely simple and incapable of 
occupying place. The pineal gland, in the Cartesian doctrine, is only 
analogically called the seat of the soul, inasmuch as this is viewed as the 
central point of the corporeal organism ; but while through this point the 
mind and body are mutually connected, that connection is not one of a 
mere physical dependence, as they do not operate on each other by direct 
and natural causation. — H. 

t Iteid uses the terms theory, hypothesis, and conjecture as convertible, and 
always in an unfavorable acceptation. Herein there is a double inaccu- 
racy. But of this again. — H. 

Almost every theory, e. g. that of gravitation, or the Copernican system, 
was an hypothesis in the beginning, but after being verified by facts it 
ceased to be an hypothesis. — Ed. 



OF HYPOTHESES. 



13 



hypotheses, and in others to acquiesce in them as the 
utmost which the human faculties can attain in philoso- 
phy, that it is of the last consequence to the progress 
of real knowledge, that men should have a clear and 
distinct understanding of the nature of hypotheses in 
philosophy, and of the regard that is due to them. 

II. A priori Improbability of such Hypotheses.] Al- 
though some conjectures may have a considerable de- 
gree of probability, yet it is evidently in the nature of 
conjecture to be uncertain. In every case, the assent 
ought to be proportioned to the evidence ; for to believe 
firmly what has but a small degree of probability is a 
manifest abuse of our understanding. Now, though 
we may, in many cases, form very probable conjectures 
concerning the works of men, every conjecture we can 
form with regard to the works of God has as little 
probability as the conjectures of a child with regard to 
the works of a man. The wisdom of God exceeds 
that of the wisest man, more than that of the wisest 
man exceeds the wisdom of a child. If a child were 
to conjecture how an army is to be formed in the day 
of battle, how a city is to be fortified, or a state gov- 
erned, what chance has he to guess right ? As little 
chance has the wisest man, when he pretends to con- 
jecture how the planets move in their courses, how the 
sea ebbs and flows, and how our minds act upon our 
bodies. 

If a thousand of the greatest wits that ever the world 
produced were, without any previous knowledge in 
anatomy, to sit down and contrive how, and by what 
internal organs, the various functions of the human 
body are carried on, — how the blood is made to circu- 
late, and the limbs to move, — they would not in a 
thousand years hit upon any thing like the truth.* Of 

* " Nothing can be juster than this remark ; but does it authorize the 
conclusion, that, to an experienced and skilful anatomist, conjectures founded 
on analogy and the consideration of uses are of no avail as media of dis- 
covery ? The logical inference, indeed, from Dr. Reid's own statement is, 
not against anatomical conjectures in general, but against the anatomical 

2 



14 



PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 



all the discoveries that have been made concerning the 
inward structure of the human body, never one was 
made by conjecture. Accurate observations of anato- 
mists have brought to light innumerable artifices of 
nature in the contrivance of this machine of the human 
body, which we cannot but admire as excellently 
adapted to their several purposes. But the most sa- 
gacious physiologist never dreamed of them till they 
were discovered. On the other hand, innumerable 
conjectures, formed in different ages, with regard to 
the structure of the body, have been confuted by ob- 
servation, and none ever confirmed. What we have 
said of the internal structure of the human body may 
be said, with justice, of every other part of the works 
of God, wherein any real discovery has been made. 
Such discoveries have always been made by patient 
observation, by accurate experiments, or by conclusions 
drawn by strict reasoning from observations and ex- 
periments ; and such discoveries have always tended to 
refute, and not to confirm, the theories and hypotheses 
which ingenious men had invented. 

As this is a fact confirmed by the history of philos- 
ophy in all past ages, it ought to have taught men, 
long ago, to treat with just contempt hypotheses in 
every branch of philosophy, and to despair of ever ad- 
vancing real knowledge in that way. The Indian phi- 
losopher, being at a loss to know how the earth was 
supported, invented the hypothesis of a huge elephant; 
and this elephant he supposed to stand upon the back 
of a huge tortoise. This hypothesis, however ridiculous 
it appears to us, might seem very reasonable to other 
Indians, who knew no more than the inventor of it ; 
and the same will be the fate of all hypotheses invent- 
ed by men to account for the works of God : they may 
have a decent and plausible appearance to those who 
are not more knowing than the inventor ; but when 



conjectures of those who are ignorant of anatomy." — Stewart's Elements, 
Part II. Chap. IX. § 2. Harvey's theory of the circulation of the blood 
hegan in a conjecture founded on the doctrine of final causes. — Ed. 



OF HYPOTHESES. 15 

men come to be more enlightened, they will always 
appear ridiculous and childish. 

This has been the case with regard to hypotheses 
that have been revered by the most enlightened part of 
mankind for hundreds of years ; and it will always be 
the case to the end of the world. For until the wis- 
dom of men bear some proportion to the wisdom of 
God, their attempts to find out the structure of his 
works by the force of their wit and genius will be vain. 

The world has been so long befooled by hypotheses 
in all parts of philosophy, that it is of the utmost con- 
sequence to every man, who would make any progress 
in real knowledge, to treat them with just contempt, 
as the reveries of vain and fanciful men, whose pride 
makes them conceive themselves able to unfold the 
mysteries of nature by the force of their genius. A 
learned man, in an epistle to Descartes, has the follow- 
ing observation, which very much deserved the atten- 
tion of that philosopher, and of all that come after him: 
— " When men, sitting in their closet, and consulting 
only their books, attempt disquisitions into nature, 
they may, indeed, tell how they would have made the 
world, if God had given them that in commission ; 
that is, they may describe chimeras which correspond 
with the imbecility of their own minds, no less than 
the admirable beauty of the universe corresponds with 
the infinite perfection of its Creator; but without an 
understanding truly divine, they can never form such 
an idea to themselves as the Deity had in creating 
things." 

III. The only Legitimate Rules of Philosophizing.] 
Let us, therefore, lay down this as a fundamental prin- 
ciple in our inquiries into the structure of the mind 
and its operations, that no regard is due to the conjec- 
tures or hypotheses of philosophers, however ancient, 
however generally received. Let us accustom our- 
selves to try every opinion by the touchstone of fact 
and experience. What can fairly be deduced from 
facts duly observed, or sufficiently attested, is genuine 



16 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

and pure ; it is the voice of God, and no fiction of hu- 
man imagination. 

The first rule of philosophizing laid down by the 
great Newton is this : — Causas rerum naturalium, non 
plures admitti deb ere, quam quce et vera sinl, et earum 
phcenomenis explicandis sufficiant, — " No more causes, 
nor any other causes of natural effects, ought to be ad- 
mitted, but such as are both true, and are sufficient for 
explaining their appearances." This is a golden rule; 
it is the true and proper test, by which what is sound 
and solid in philosophy may be distinguished from 
what is hollow and vain.* 

If a philosopher, therefore, pretend to show us the 
cause of any natural effect, whether relating to matter 
or to mind, let us first consider whether there be suffi- 
cient evidence that the cause he assigns does really exist. 
If there be not, reject it with disdain, as a fiction which 
ought to have no place in genuine philosophy. If the 
cause assigned really exist, consider in the next place 
whether the effect it is brought to explain necessarily 
follows from it. Unless it have these two conditions, 
it is good for nothing. 

When Newton had shown the admirable effects of 
gravitation in our planetary system, he must have felt 
a strong desire to know its cause. He could have in- 
vented a hypothesis for this purpose, as many had 
done before him. But his philosophy was of another 
complexion. Let us hear what he says : — Rationem 
harum gravitatis proprietatum ex phcenomenis non potui 
deducere, et hypotheses non fingo. Quicquid enim ex 
phainomenis non deducitur, hypothesis vocanda est. Et 
hypotheses, seu metaphysicce, seu physic ce, seu qualitatum 
occultarium, seu mechanicce, in philosophia experimentali 
locum non habent.-f 

. * For this rule we are not indebted to Newton. It is only the old law 

V of parsimony, and that ambiguously expressed. For in their plain mean- 

■ ing, the words et vera sint are redundant; or what follows is redundant, 

and the whole rule a barren truism. — H. [Compare Whewell, Philosophy 

of the Inductive Sciences, Book XII. Chap. XIII —Ed.] 

t "I have not been able to deduce from phenomena the cause of these 
^> properties of gravity, and I do not frame hypotheses. For whatever is not 



OF ANALOGY. 17 

CHAPTER III. 

OF ANALOGY. 

I. Nature and Uses of Analogical Reasoning.] It is 
natural to men to judge of things less known by some 
similitude they observe, or think they observe, between 

deduced from phenomena must be termed hypothesis. And hypotheses, 
■whether regarding physics, metaphysics, occult qualities, or mechanics, 
have no place in experimental philosophy." 

On the use of hypotheses, with its just limitations, compare Stewart, 
Elements, Part II. Chap. IX. § 2 ; Herschel, Preliminary Discourse, Part II. 
Chap. VII. ; Mill, System of Logic, Book III. Chap. XIII. §§4-7. The 
latter observes : — " When Newton said, Hypotheses non Jingo, he did not 
mean, that he deprived himself of the facilities of investigation afforded by 
assuming, in the first instance, what he hoped ultimately to be able to 
prove. Without such assumptions, science could never have attained its 
present state : they are necessary steps in the progress to something more 
certain; and nearly every thing which is now theory was once hypothesis. 
Even in purely experimental science, some inducement is necessary for 
trying one experiment rather than another; and although it is abstractedly 
possible that all the experiments which have been tried might have been 
produced by the mere desire to ascertain what would happen in certain 
circumstances, without any previous conjecture as to the result, yet, in 
point of fact, those unobvious, delicate, and often cumbrous and tedious 
processes of experiment, which have thrown most light upon the general 
constitution of nature, would hardly ever have been undertaken by the 
persons or at the time they were, unless it had seemed to depend on them 
whether some general doctrine or theory which had been suggested, but 
not yet proved, should be admitted or not. If this be true even of merely 
experimental inquiry, the conversion of experimental into inductive truths 
could still less have been effected without large temporary assistance from 
hypotheses. The process of tracing regularity in any complicated, and at 
first sight confused, set of appearances, is necessarily tentative ; we begin 
by making any supposition, even a false one, to see what consequences 
will follow from it ; and by observing how these differ from the real phe- 
nomena, we learn what corrections to make in our supposition. Let any 
one watch the manner in which he himself unravels any complicated mass 
of evidence ; let him observe how, for instance, he elicits the true history 
of any occurrence from the involved statements of one or of many wit- 
nesses. He will find, that he does not take all the items of evidence into 
his mind at once, and attempt to weave them together : the human facul- 
ties are not equal to such an undertaking : he extemporizes, from a few of 
the particulars, a first rude theory of the mode in which the facts took 
place, and then looks at the other statements, one by one, to try whether 
they can be reconciled with that provisional theory, or what corrections or 
additions it requires to make it square with them. In this way, which, as 
M. Comte remarks, has some resemblance to the methods of approxima- 

2* 



18 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

them and things more familiar or better known. In 
many cases, we have no better way of judging. And 
where the things compared have really a great simili- 
tude in their nature, when there is reason to think that 
they are subject to the same laws, there may be a con- 
siderable degree of probability in conclusions drawn 
from analogy. 

Thus, we may observe a very great similitude be- 
tween this earth which we inhabit, and the other plan- 
ets, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. They 
all revolve round the sun, as the earth does, although at 
different distances, and in different periods. They bor- 
row all their light from the sun, as the earth does. 
Several of them are known to revolve round their axes 
like the earth, and, by that means, must have a like 
succession of day and night. Some of them have 
moons, that serve to give them light in the absence of 
the sun, as our moon does to us. They are all, in 
their motions, subject to the same law of gravitation 
as the earth is. From all this similitude, it is not un- 
reasonable to think, that those planets may, like our 



tion of mathematicians, we arrive, by means of hypotheses, at eonelusions 
not hypothetical.'' 1 

In a. note he adds : — " The attempt to localize, in different regions of the 
brain, the physical organs of our different mental faculties and propensi- 
ties, was, on the part of its original author, a strictly legitimate example of 
a scientific hypothesis ; and we ought not. therefore, to blame him for the 
extremely slight grounds on which he often proceeded, in an operation 
which could only be tentative, though we may regret that materials barely 
sufficient for a first rude hypothesis should haye been hastily worked up 
by his successors into the vain semblance of a science. Whatever there may 
be of reality in the connection between the scale of mental endowments 
and the various degrees of complication in the cerebral system (and that 
there is some such connection, comparative anatomy seems strongly to in- 
dicate), it was in no other way so likely to be brought to light as by fram- 
ing, in the first instance, an hypothesis similar to that of Gall. But the 
verification of any such hypothesis is attended, from the peculiar nature of 
the phenomena, with difficulties which phrenologists have not hitherto 
shown themselves even competent to appreciate, much less to overcome." 

That Dr. Reid has pushed his objections too far must be admitted. 
Still, the very example which Mr. Mill has given of a legitimate hypothe- 
sis admonishes us with how much danger to science the resort is attended, 
and strengthens our conviction that the spirit which dictated these objec- 
tions, and which they, in turn, are adapted to inspire, cannot be too highly 
commended. — Ed. 



OF ANALOGY. 19 

earth, be the habitation of various orders of living crea- 
tures. There is some probability in this conclusion 
from analogy. 

In medicine, physicians must, for the most part, be 
directed in their prescriptions by analogy. The con- 
stitution of one human body is so like to that of 
another, that it is reasonable to think, that what is the 
cause of health or sickness" to one may have the same 
effect upon another. And this generally is found true, 
though not without some exceptions. 

In politics we reason, for the most part, from analo- 
gy. The constitution of human nature is so similar in 
different societies or commonwealths, that the causes 
of peace and war, of tranquillity and sedition, of riches 
and poverty, of improvement and degeneracy, are much 
the same in all. 

Analogical reasoning, therefore, is not in all cases to 
be rejected. It may afford a greater or a less degree 
of probability, according as the things compared are 
more or less similar in their nature. But it ought to 
be observed, that, as this kind of reasoning can afford 
only probable evidence at best, so, unless great caution 
be used, we are apt to be led into error by it. For 
men are naturally disposed to conceive a greater simili- 
tude in things than there really is* 

To give an instance of this. Anatomists, in ancient 
ages, seldom dissected human bodies; but very often 
the bodies of those quadrupeds whose internal struc- 
ture was thought to approach nearest to that of the 
human body. Modern anatomists have discovered 
many mistakes the ancients were led into, by their 
conceiving a greater similitude between the structure 
of men and of some beasts than there is in reality. By 
this, and many other instances that might be given, it 
appears that conclusions built on analogy stand on a 

* Berkeley says : — "We should proceed warily in such things, for we 
are apt to lay too great a stress on analogies, and, to the prejudice of truth, 
humor that eagerness of mind whereby it is carried to extend its knowl- 
edge into general theorems." — Principles of Human Knowledge, Part I. 
§ 106.— Ed. 



20 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

slippery foundation ; and that we ought never to rest 
upon evidence of this kind, when we can have more 
direct evidence. 

I know no author who has made a more just and a 
more happy use of this mode of reasoning than Bishop 
Butler, in his Analogy of Religion, Natural and Re- 
vealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature. In 
that excellent work, the author does not ground any of 
the truths of religion upon analogy, as their proper 
evidence. He only makes use of analogy to answer 
objections against them. When objections are made 
against the truths of religion, which may be made with 
equal strength against what we know to be true in the 
course of nature, such objections can have no weight. 

Analogical reasoning, therefore, may be of excellent 
use, (1.) in answering objections against truths which 
have other evidence. It may likewise (2.) give a greater 
or a less degree of probability in cases where we can 
find no other evidence. But all arguments drawn from 
analogy are still the weaker, the greater disparity there 
is between the things compared; and therefore must 
be weakest of all when we compare body with mind, 
because there are no two things in nature more un- 
like. 

II. Why a frequent Source of Error in Mental Sci- 
ence.] There is no subject in which men have always 
been so prone to form their notions by analogies of this 
kind as in what relates to the mind. We form an early 
acquaintance with material things by means of our 
senses, and are bred up in a constant familiarity with 
them. Hence we are apt to measure all things by 
them, and to ascribe to things most remote from matter 
the qualities that belong to material things. It is for 
this reason, that mankind have, in all ages, been so 
prone to conceive the mind itself to be some subtile kind 
of matter ; that they have been disposed to ascribe hu- 
man figure, and human organs, not only to angels, but 
even to the Deity. Though we are conscious of the 
operations of our own minds when they are exerted, 



OF ANALOGY. 21 

and are capable of attending to them so as to form a 
distinct notion of them, this is so difficult a work to 
men whose attention is constantly solicited by external 
objects, that we give them names from things that are 
familiar, and which are conceived to have some simili- 
tude to them; and the notions we form of them are no 
less analogical than the names we give them. Almost 
all the words by which we express the operations of 
the mind are borrowed from material objects. To un- 
derstand, to conceive, to imagine, to comprehend, to de- 
liberate, to infer, and many others, are words of this 
kind; so that the very language of mankind, with 
regard to the operations of our minds, is analogical. 
Because bodies are affected only by contact and pres- 
sure, iv e are apt to conceive that ivhat is an immediate 
object of thought, and affects the mind, must be in con- 
tact with it, and make some impression upon it. When 
we imagine any thing, the very word leads us to think 
that there must be some image in the mind of the thing 
conceived. It is evident that these notions are drawn 
from some similitude conceived between body and 
mind, and between the properties of body and the oper- 
ations of mind. 

To illustrate more fully that analogical reasoning 
from a supposed similitude of mind to body, which I 
conceive to be the most fruitful source of errors with 
regard to the operations of our minds, I shall give an 
instance of it. 

When a man is urged by contrary motives, those on 
one hand inciting him to do some action, those on the 
other to forbear it, he deliberates about it, and at last 
resolves to do it, or not to do it. The contrary motives 
are here compared to the weights in the opposite scales 
of a balance ; and there is not, perhaps, any instance 
that can be named of a more striking analogy between 
body and mind. Hence the phrases of weighing- motives, 
of deliberating upon actions, are common to all lan- 
guages. 

From this analogy some philosophers draw very im- 
portant conclusions. They say, that, as the balance 



22 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

cannot incline to one side more than the other, when 
the opposite weights are equal, so a man cannot pos- 
sibly determine himself, if the motives on both hands 
are equal ; and, as the balance must necessarily turn to 
that side which has most weight, so the man must 
necessarily be determined to that hand where the mo- 
tive is strongest. And on this foundation, some of the 
schoolmen* maintained, that, if a hungry ass were 
placed between two bundles of hay equally inviting, 
the beast must stand still and starve to death, being 
unable to turn to either, because there are equal mo- 
tives to both. This is an instance of that analogical 
reasoning which I conceive ought never to be trusted ; 
for the analogy between a balance and a man deliber- 
ating, though one of the strongest that can be found 
between matter and mind, is too weak to support any 
argument. A piece of dead, inactive matter, and an 
active, intelligent being, are things very unlike; and 
because the one would remain at rest in a certain case, 
it does not follow that the other would be inactive in a 
case somewhat similar. The argument is no better 
than this : that, because a dead animal moves only as 
it is pushed, and, if pushed with equal force in con- 
trary directions, must remain at rest, therefore the same 
thing must happen to a living animal ; for surely the 
similitude between a dead animal and a living is as 
great as that between a balance and a man. 

The conclusion I would draw from all that has been 
said on analogy is, that, in our inquiries concerning the 

* This illustration is specially associated with Joannes Buridanus, a 
celebrated nominalist of the fourteenth century, and one of the acutest 
reasoners on the great question of moral liberty. The supposition of the 
ass, &c., is not, however, as I have ascertained, to be found in his writings. 
Perhaps it was orally advanced in disputation or in lecturing as an ex- 
ample in illustration of his determinism ; perhaps it was employed by his 
opponents as an instance to reduce that doctrine to absurdity. With this 
latter view, a similar refutation of the principles of our modern fatalists 
was ingeniously essayed by Eeid's friend and kinsman, Dr. James Greg- 
ory. — H. 

JFor further illustrations of the grounds and scope of analogical reason- 
ing, see Archbishop Whatelv's Rhetoric, Part I. Chap. II. § 6, and Mill's 
System of Loyic, Book III. Chap. XX. — Ed. 



MEANS OF KNOWING THE MIND. 23 

mind and its operations, (1.) we ought never to trust to 
reasonings drawn from some supposed similitude of body 
to mind; and (2.) that we ought to be very much upon 
our guard, that we be not imposed upon by those an- 
alogical terms and phrases by which the operations of 
the mind are expressed in all languages. 



CHAPTEE IV. 






ON THE PROPER MEANS OE KNOWING THE OPERA- 
TIONS OE THE MIND. 

I. Subsidiary Sources of Knowledge respecting the 
Mind.] Since we ought to pay no regard to hypothe- 
ses, and to be very suspicious of analogical reasoning, 
it may be asked, From what source must the knowl- 
edge of the mind and its faculties be drawn ? 

I answer, the chief and proper source of this branch 
of knowledge is accurate reflection upon the operations 
of our own minds. Of this source we shall speak 
more fully, after making some remarks upon two others 
that may be subservient to it. 

1. The first of them is attention to the structure of 
language. The language of mankind is expressive of 
their thoughts, and of the various operations of their 
minds. The various operations of the understanding, 
will, and passions, which are common to mankind, have 
various forms of speech corresponding to them in all 
languages, which are the signs of them, and by which 
they are expressed ; and a due attention to the signs 
may, in many cases, give considerable light to the 
things signified by them. 

There are in all languages modes of speech by which 
men signify their judgment or give their testimony; 
by which they accept or refuse ; by which they ask in- 
formation or advice ; by which they command, or 
threaten, or supplicate ; by which they plight their faith 



24 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

in promises and contracts. If such operations were 
not common to mankind, we should not find in all 
languages forms of speech by which they are expressed. 
All languages, indeed, have their imperfections ; they 
can never be adequate to all the varieties of human 
thought ; and therefore things may be really distinct in 
their nature, and capable of being distinguished by the 
human mind, which are not distinguished in common 
language. We can only expect, in the structure of 
languages, those distinctions which all mankind in the 
common business of life have occasion to make. There 
may be peculiarities in a particular language, of the 
causes of which we are ignorant, and from which, 
therefore, we can draw no conclusion. But whatever 
we find common to all languages must have a common 
cause ; must be owing to some common notion or senti- 
ment of the human mind. 

2. Another source of information on this subject is 
a due attention to the course of human actions and opin- 
ions. The actions of men are effects ; their sentiments, 
their passions, and their affections are the causes of 
those effects ; and we may, in many cases, form a 
judgment of the cause from the effect. The behaviour 
of parents towards their children gives sufficient evi- 
dence, even to those who never had children, that the 
parental affection is common to mankind. It is easy 
to see, from the general conduct of men, what are the 
natural objects of their esteem, their admiration, their 
love, their approbation, their resentment, and of all their 
other original dispositions. It is obvious, from the con- 
duct of men in all ages, that man is, by his nature, a 
social animal; that he delights to associate with his 
species, — to converse and to exchange good offices 
with them. 

Not only the actions, but even the opinions, of men 
may sometimes give light into the frame of the human 
mind. The opinions of men may be considered as the 
effects of their intellectual powers, as their actions are 
the effects of their active principles. Even the preju- 
dices and errors of mankind, when they are general, 



MEANS OF KNOAVING THE MIND. 



25 



must have some cause no less general, the discovery of 
which will throw some light upon the frame of the 
human understanding. 

I conceive this to be the principal use of the history 
of philosophy. When we trace the history of the vari- 
ous philosophical opinions that have sprung up among 
thinking men, we are led into a labyrinth of fanciful 
opinions, contradictions, and absurdities, intermixed 
with some truths ; yet we may sometimes find a clew 
to lead us through the several windings of this laby- 
rinth; we may find that point of view which presented 
things to the author of the system in the light in which 
they appeared to him. This will often give a consis- 
tency to things seemingly contradictory, and some 
degree of probability to those that appeared most fan- 
ciful.* The history of philosophy, considered as a map 
of the intellectual operations of men of genius, must 
always be entertaining, and may sometimes give us 
views of the human understanding which could not 
easily be had any other way. 

II. Consciousness and Reflection.] I return to what 
I mentioned as the main source of information on this 
subject, — attentive reflection upon the operations of our 
own minds. 

All the notions we have of mind and of its opera- 
tions are, by Mr. Locke, called ideas of reflection.^ A 
man may have as distinct notions of remembrance, of 
judgment, of will, of desire, as he has of any object 
whatever. Such notions, as Mr. Locke justly observes, 
are got by the power of reflection. But what is this 
power of reflection? It is, says the same author, " that 
power by which the mind turns its view inward, and 
observes its own actions and operations." He observes 
elsewhere, that the understanding, like the eye, whilst 
it makes us see and perceive all other things, takes no 

* "Every error," says Bossuet, "is a truth abused." — H. 

t Locke is not (as Reid seems to think, and as Mr. Stewart expressly 
says) the first who introduced reflection, either as a psychological term or 
as a psychological principle. See Note I. — H. 

3 



26 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

notice of itself;* and that it requires art and pains to 
set it at a distance, and make it its own object. 

This reflection ought to be distinguished from con- 
sciousness, with which it is too often confounded, even 
by Mr. Locke. From infancy, till we come to the 
years of understanding, we are employed solely about 
external objects ; and, although the mind is conscious 
of its operations, it does not attend to them ; its atten- 
tion is turned solely to the external objects about which 
those operations are employed. Thus, when a man is 
angry, he is conscious of his passion ; but his atten- 
tion is turned to the person who offended him, and the 
circumstances of the offence, while the passion of anger 
is not in the least the object of his attention. 

I conceive this is sufficient to show the difference 
between consciousness of the operations of our minds, 
and reflection upon them ; and to show that we may 
have the former without any degree of the latter. The 
difference between consciousness and reflection is like to 
the difference between a superficial view of an object 
which presents itself to the eye while we are engaged 
about something else, and that attentive examination 
which we give to an object when we are wholly em- 
ployed in surveying it. Attention is a voluntary act ; 
it requires an active exertion to begin and to continue 
it, and it may be continued as long as we will ; but 
consciousness is involuntary and of no continuance, 
changing' with every thought. 

The power of reflection upon the operations of their 
own minds does not appear at all in children. Men 
must be come to some ripeness of understanding be- 
fore they are capable of it. Of all the powers of the 
human mind, it seems to be the last that unfolds it- 
self. Most men seem incapable of acquiring it in any 
considerable degree. Like all our other powers, it 
is greatly improved by exercise ; and, until a man 
has got the habit of attending to the operations of his 



* After Cicero : — "At ut oculus, sic animus se non videns alia cernit." 
Tusc, I. 28. — Ed. 



MEANS OF KNOWING THE MIND. 27 

own mind, he can never have clear and distinct notions 
of them, nor form any steady judgment concerning 
them. His opinions must be borrowed from others, 
his notions confused and indistinct, and he may easily 
be led to swallow very gross absurdities. To acquire 
this habit is a work of time and labor, even in those 
who begin it early, and whose natural talents are tol- 
erably fitted for it ; but the difficulty will be daily di- 
minishing, and the advantage of it is great. They will 
thereby be enabled to think with precision and accu- 
racy on every subject, especially on those subjects that 
are more abstract. They will be able to judge for 
themselves in many important points, wherein others 
must blindly follow a leader.* 

* Consciousness is not a special faculty coordinate with perception and 
memory, but a general condition of mind considered as self-knowing, by 
which all the mental faculties are made available. Through consciousness 
the mind not only knows itself and the changes it undergoes, but also 
whatever it knows by means of any of its special faculties. We are con- 
scious of remembering as we do ; we are conscious of perceiving as we do ; 
we are conscious of feeling as we do. Accordingly, as Sir W. Hamilton 
intimates elsewhere, the various faculties may be regarded as special modifi- 
cations of consciousness. If consciousness fails, all the special faculties fail. 
Very frequently, however, the term is used in a restricted sense, signifying 
the notice which the mind takes of itself and its operations and affections ; 
or internal observation in contradistinction to external observation, its acts 
being called by some, not perceptions, but apperceptions. So understood, 
consciousness is the witness and authority of all proper psychological facts. 

Thus Jouffroy : — " What is consciousness 1 It is the feeling which the 
intelligent principle has of itself. This principle has the feeling of itself, 
and hence the consciousness of all the changes, all the modifications, 
which it undergoes. The only phenomena, then, of which it can have the 
consciousness, are those which are produced within itself. Those which 
are produced beyond itself, it can see ; but it cannot feel them. It can, then, 
have the consciousness of its sensations, because it is itself which enjoys or 
suffers; or of its thoughts, its determinations, because it is itself which 
thinks and determines: but it can have no consciousness of muscular con- 
traction, of digestion, of the circulation of the blood, because it is the mus- 
cle which contracts, the stomach which digests, the blood which circulates, 
and not itself. These phenomena, then, are precisely in the same relation 
to it as the phenomena of external nature; they are produced beyond it, 
and it can have no consciousness of them. Such is the true reason of the 
incapability of the consciousness to seize a multitude of phenomena which 
take place in the bod//, but which, on that account, are none the less exte- 
rior to the intelligent principle, to the real me [eijo]. On the other hand, 
the phenomena of consciousness being only the inward modifications of 
the intelligent principle, that alone can perceive them, because it is that 
alone which experiences them, and because, in order to perceive them, it 



* 



28 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

CHAPTER V. 

DIVISION OF THE POWEES OF THE MIND. 

I. Division of the Mental Powers into Understanding 
and Will.] The powers of the mind are so many, so 
various, and so connected and complicated in most of 
its operations, that there never has been any division of 
them proposed which is not liable to considerable ob- 
jection. We- shall therefore take that general divis- 
ion which is the most common, into the powers of 
understanding' and those of will. Under the will we 
comprehend our active powers, and all that lead to 
action, or influence the mind to act, such as appetites, 
passions, affections. The understanding comprehends 
our contemplative powers; by which we perceive ob- 
jects; by which we conceive or remember them; by 
which we analyze or compound them ; and by which 
we judge and reason concerning them. 

is necessary to feel them. For this reason, the phenomena of conscious- 
ness necessarily escape all external observation." — Eipley's Philosophical 
Miscellanies, Vol. II. p. 15. 

To the same effect Cousin: — "But is a knowledge of human nature, is 
psychology, possible 1 Without doubt it is ; for it is an undeniable fact, 
that nothing passes within us which we do not know, of which we have 
not a consciousness. Consciousness is a witness which gives us informa- 
tion of every thing which takes place in the interior of our minds. It is 
not the principle of any of our faculties, but is a light to them all. It is 
not because we have the consciousness of it, that any thing goes on within 
us ; but that which goes on within us would be to us as though it did not 
take place, if it were not attested by consciousness. It is not by conscious- 
ness that we feel, or will, or think ; but it is by it that we know that we do 

all this Consciousness is indeed more or less distinct, more or less 

vivid, but it is in all men. No one is unknown to himself, although very 
few know themselves perfectly, because all, or nearly all, make use of con- 
sciousness without applying themselves to perfect, unfold, and understand 
it, by voluntary effort and attention. In all men consciousness is a natural 
process ; some elevate this natural process to the degree of an art, a meth- 
od, by reflection, which is a sort of second consciousness, a free reproduc- 
tion of the first ; and as consciousness gives to all men a knowledge of what 
passes within them, so reflection gives the philosopher a certain knowledge 
of every thing which falls under the eye of consciousness. It is to be ob- 
served, that the question here is not concerning hypotheses or conjectures; 
for it is not even a question concerning a process of reasoning. It is solely 



DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND. 29 

Although this general division may be of use in 
order to our proceeding more methodically in our sub- 
ject, we are not to understand it as if, in those opera- 
tions which are ascribed to the understanding, there 
were no exertion of will or activity, or as if the under- 
standing were not employed in the operations ascribed 
to the will ; for I conceive there is no operation of the 
understanding wherein the mind is not active in some 
degree. We have some command over our thoughts, 
and can attend to this or that, of many objects which 
present themselves to our senses, to our memory, or to 
our imagination. "We can survey an object on this 
side or that, superficially or accurately, for a longer or 
a shorter time ; so that our contemplative powers are 
under the guidance and direction of the active; and 
the former never pursue their object, without being led 
and directed, urged or restrained, by the latter: and 
because the understanding is always more or less di- 
rected by the will, mankind have ascribed some degree 
of activity to the mind in its intellectual operations, as 
well as in those which belong to the will, and have ex- 

a question of facts, and of facts that are equally capable of being observed 
as those which come to pass on the scene of the outward world. The 
only difference is, the one is exterior, the other interior ; and as the natu- 
ral action of our faculties carries us outward, it is more easy to observe the 
one than the other. But with a little attention, voluntary exertion, and 
practice, one may succeed in internal observation as well as in external. 
The talent for the latter is not more common than for the former. The 
number of Bacons is not greater than the number of Descarteses." 

In a note the translator, Professor Henry, adds : — t; In regard to the dis- 
tinction between the natural or spontaneous, and the philosophical or re- 
flected consciousness, it may be remarked, that, while Locke uses the word 
reflection to signify the natural consciousness common to all reflecting be- 
ings, Cousin uses it above to imply a pm-ticular determination of conscious- 
ness by the will. Coleridge makes the same distinction with Cousin ; but 
he does not consider the power of philosophical insight to be as common 
as Cousin would make it. ' It is neither possible,' says he, ' nor necessary 
for all men, or for many, to be philosophers. There is a philosophic (and, 
inasmuch as it is actualized by an effort of freedom, an artificial) con- 
sciousness which lies beneath, or, as it were, behind, the spontaneous con- 
sciousness natural to all reflecting beings.'" — Elements of Psychology, 
Chap. I. Compare Brown, Lectures, Lect. XL; Eearn, Essay on Con- 
sciousness, p. 15 ei seq. ,- Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, Art. Con- 
science ; also, in Blackicood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. XLLTI. - XLV., a 
series of ingenious papers, entitled An Introduction to the Philosophy of 
Consciousness. — Ed. 

3* 



30 PRELIMINARY ESSAY. 

pressed them by active verbs, such as seeing; hearing', 
judging, reasoning, and the like. 

And as the mind exerts some degree of activity even 
in the operations of understanding, so it is certain that 
there can be no act of will which is not accompanied 
with some act of understanding. The will must have 
an object, and that object must be apprehended or 
conceived in the understanding. It is therefore to be 
remembered, that in most, if not all, operations of the 
mind, both j acuities concur ; and we range the operation 
under that faculty which has the largest share in it.* 

II. Subdivision of the Powers of the Understanding.] 
There is not a more fruitful source of error in this 
branch of philosophy, than divisions of things which 

* It would be out of place to enter on the extensive field of history and 
discussion relative to the distribution of our mental powers. It is suffi- 
cient to say, that the vulgar division of the faculties, adopted by Peid, into 
those of the understanding and those of the will, is to be traced to the classi- 
fication, taken in the Aristotelic school, of the powers into gnostic, or cog- 
nitive, and orectic, or appetent. On this the reader may consult the admi- 
rable introduction of Philoponus — or rather of Ammonius Hermia? — to 
the books of Aristotle Upon the Soul. — H. 

The threefold division of the mind into intellect, sensibility, and will — to 
think, to feel, and to act — is now generally adopted by psychologists. 
See it stated and defended in Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, Art. 
Facultes de I'Ame. Also in Upham's Mental Philosophy, Introduction, 
Chap. IV. 

Another classification is given by Jouffroy: — "In the actual state of 
human knowledge, the irreducible capacities of the human mind appear to 
me to be the following. First, the personal faculty, or the supreme power 
of taking possession of ourselves and of our capacities, and of controlling 
them : this faculty is known by the name of liberty or will, which desig- 
nates it but imperfectly. Secondly, the primitive inclinations of our nature, 
or that aggregate of instincts or tendencies which impel us towards certain 
ends and in certain directions, prior to all experience, and which at once 
suggest to reason the destiny of our being, and animate our activity to 
pursue it. Thirdly, the locomotive faculty , or that energy by means of which 
we move the locomotive nerves, and produce all the voluntary bodily 
movements. Fourthly, the expressive faculty, or the power of representing 
by external signs that which takes place within us, and of thus holding 
communication with our fellow-men. Fifthly, sensibility, or the capacity of 
being agreeably or disagreeably affected by all external or internal causes, 
and of reacting in relation to them by movements of love or hatred, of 
desire or aversion, which are the principle of all passion. Sixthly, the in- 
tellectual faculties : this term comprises many distinct faculties, which can 
only be enumerated and described in a treatise on Intelligence'" — Ripley's 
Philosophical Miscellanies, Vol. I. p. 382. — Ed. 



DIVISION OF THE POWERS OF THE MIND. 31 

are taken to be complete when they are not really so. 
To make a perfect division of any class of things, a 
man ought to have the whole under his view at once. 
But the greatest capacity very often is not sufficient 
for this. Something is left out which did not come 
under the philosopher's view when he made his divis- 
ion ; and to suit this to the division, it must be made 
what nature never made it. This has been so com- 
mon a fault of philosophers, that one who would avoid 
error ought to be suspicious of divisions, though long 
received and of great authority, especially when they 
are grounded on a theory that may be called in ques- 
tion. In a subject imperfectly known, we ought not to 
pretend to perfect divisions, but to leave room for such 
additions or alterations as a more perfect view of the 
subject may afterwards suggest. 

I shall not, therefore, attempt a complete enumera- 
tion of the powers of the human understanding;. I shall 
only mention those which I propose to explain, and 
they are the following : — 

First, The powers we have by means of our exter- 
nal senses. Secondly, Memory. Thirdly, Conception. 
Fourthly, The powers of resolving and analyzing com- 
plex objects, and compounding those that are more 
simple. Fifthly, Judging. Sixthly, Reasoning. Sev- 
enthly, Taste.* 



* To these Dr. Reid added, — " Eighthly, Moral Perception ; and, last of 
all, Consciousness." I omit the clause, because Moral Perception is not 
treated by him in this work, but in another, On the Active Powers, Essay V.; 
and Consciousness obtains only an incidental consideration, under Judg- 
ment, in the sixth Essay. On the impropriety of regarding consciousness 
as one of the coordinate special faculties of the understanding, see p. 27, 
note. 

Dr. Brown reduces all the proper intellectual powers (or " states," as he 
prefers to call them) to simple and relative suggestion. To the former he re- 
fers perception (as distinguished from sensation), conception, memory, imag- 
ination, and habit; to the latter, judgment, reason, and abstraction. Lectures, 
Lect. XVI. et passim. For a defence of the same, see Payne's Elements of 
Mental and Moral Science, Chap. VI. — Ed. 



ESSAY II. 



OF THE POWERS WE HAVE BY MEANS OF OUR 
EXTERNAL SENSES. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 

I. General Remarks.] Of all the operations of our 
minds, the perception of external objects is the most fa- 
miliar. The senses come to maturity even in infancy, 
when other powers have not yet sprung up. They are 
common to us with brute animals, and furnish us with 
the objects about which our other powers are the most 
frequently employed. We find it easy to attend to 
their operations ; and because they are familiar, the 
names which properly belong to them are applied to 
other powers which are thought to resemble them. For 
these reasons they claim to be first considered. 

The perception of external objects is one main link 
of that mysterious chain which connects the material 
world with the intellectual. We shall find many things 
in this operation unaccountable ; sufficient to convince 
us, that we know but little of our own frame,, and that 
a perfect comprehension of our mental powers, and of 
the manner of their operation, is beyond the reach of 
our understanding. 

In perception there are impressions upon the organs 
of sense, the nerves, and brain, which, by the laws of 
our nature, are followed by certain operations of mind. 
These two things are apt to be confounded, but ought 
most carefully to be distinguished. Some philosophers, 



OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 33 

without good reason, have concluded that the impres- 
sions made on the body are the proper efficient cause 
of perception. Others, with as little reason, have con- 
cluded that impressions are made on the mind similar 
to those made on the body. From these mistakes, 
many others have arisen. The wrong notions men 
have rashly taken up with regard to the senses have 
led to wrong notions with regard to other powers which 
are conceived to resemble them. Many important 
powers of mind have, especially of late, been called in- 
ternal senses, from a supposed resemblance to the exter- 
nal; such as the sense of beauty, the sense of harmony, 
the moral sense. And it is to be apprehended, that 
errors with regard to the external have, from analogy, 
led to similar errors with regard to the internal ; it is 
therefore of some consequence, even with regard to 
other branches of our subject, to have just notions con- 
cerning the external senses. 

II. Tlie Laws of Perception considered in Relation 
to the Organs of Sense.] In order to this, we shall be- 
gin with some observations on the organs of sense, and 
on the impressions which in perception are made upon 
them, and upon the nerves and brain. 

1. We perceive no external object but by means of cer- 
tain bodily organs which God has given us for that pur- 
pose. The Supreme Being who made us, and placed 
us in this world, has given us such powers of mind as 
he saw to be suited to our state and rank in his crea- 
tion. He has given us the power of perceiving many 
objects around us, — the sun, moon, and stars, the 
earth and sea, and a variety of animals, vegetables, and 
inanimate bodies. But our power of perceiving these 
objects is limited in various ways, and particularly in 
this, that without the organs of the several senses we 
perceive no external object. We cannot see without 
eyes, nor hear without ears : it is not only necessary 
that we should have these organs, but that they should 
be in a sound and natural state. There are many dis- 
orders of the eye that cause total blindness ; others 



34 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

that impair the powers of vision, without destroying it 
altogether ; and the same may be said of the organs of 
all the other senses. 

All this is so well known from experience, that it 
needs no proof; but it ought to be observed, that we 
know it from experience only. We can give no reason 
for it, but that such is the will of our Maker. No man 
can show it to be impossible to the Supreme Being to 
have given us the power of perceiving external objects 
without such organs. We have reason to believe, that, 
when we put off these bodies, and all the organs be- 
longing to them, our perceptive powers shall rather be 
improved than destroyed or impaired. We have reason 
to believe that the Supreme Being perceives every thing 
in a much more perfect manner than we do, without 
bodily organs. We have reason to believe that there 
are other created beings endowed with powers of per- 
ception more perfect and more extensive than ours, 
without any such organs as we find necessary. 

We ought not, therefore, to conclude, that such 
bodily organs are, in their own nature, necessary to 
perception ; but rather, that, by the will of God, our 
power of perceiving external objects is limited to and 
circumscribed by our organs of sense ; so that we per- 
ceive objects in a certain manner, and in certain cir- 
cumstances, and in no other.* 



* " Among the well-attested facts of physiology," says Milller, perhaps 
the highest authority on the subject, " there is not one to support the be- 
lief that one nerve of sense can assume the functions of another. The 
exaggeration of the sense of touch in the blind will not, in these days, be 
called seeing with the fingers ; the accounts of the power of vision by the 
fingers and epigastrium, said to be possessed in the so-called magnetic 
state, appear to be mere fables, and the instances in which it has been pre- 
tended to practise it, cases of deception." And again : — "It is quite in 
accordance with the laws of science, that a person sleeping shall have 
ocular spectra, — we experience them sometimes when the eyes are closed, 
even before falling asleep, — for the nerves of vision may be excited to 
sensation by internal as well as by external causes; and so long as a mag- 
netic patient manifests merely the ordinary phenomena of nervous action 
that are seen in other disorders of the nervous system, it is all creditable 
enough. But when such a person pretends to see through a bandage 
placed before the eyes, or by means of the fingers or the epigastrium, or 
to see round a corner and into a neighbouring house, or to become pro- 



OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 35 

If a man were shut up in a dark room, so that he 
could see nothing but through one small hole in the 
shutter of a window, would he conclude that the hole 
was the cause of his seeing, and that it is impossible to 
see any other way ? Perhaps, if he had never in his 
life seen but in this way, he might be apt to think so ; 
but the conclusion is rash and groundless. He sees be- 
cause God has given him the power of seeing ; and he 
sees only through this small hole, because his power of 
seeing is circumscribed by impediments on all other 
hands. 

Another necessary caution in this matter is, that we 
ought not to confound the organs of perception with the 
being that perceives. Perception must be the act of 
some being that perceives. The eye is not that which 
sees ; it is only the organ by which we see. The ear 
is not that which hears, but the organ by which we 
hear. And so of the rest.* 

A man cannot see the satellites of Jupiter but by a 
telescope. Does he conclude from this, that it is the 
telescope that sees those stars ? By no means ; such a 
conclusion would be absurd. It is no less absurd to 
conclude that it is the eye that sees or the ear that 
hears. The telescope is an artificial organ of sight, but 
it sees not. The eye is a natural organ of sight, by 
which we see ; but the natural organ sees as little as 
the artificial. 

The eye is a machine most admirably contrived for 
refracting the rays of light, and forming a distinct pic- 
ture of objects upon the retina; but it sees neither the 
object nor the picture. It can form the picture after it- 

phetic, such arrant imposture no longer deserves forbearance, and an open 
and sound exposure of the deception is called for." — Elements of Physi- 
ology, Vol. II. pp. 1071, 1125. See also Carpenter's Principles of Human 
Physiology, § 311. 

This doctrine may be traced back to Aristotle and his school, and 
even higher. " There is extant," says Plutarch, " a discourse of Strato 
Physicus, demonstrating that a sensitive apprehension is ivholly impossible 
without an act of intellect." (Op. Mot:, p. 961.) And as to Aristotle him- 
self: — "To divorce," he says, "sensation from understanding, is to 
reduce sensation to an insensible process; wherefore it has been said, intel- 
lect sees, and intellect hears." (Probi, XI. 33.) — H. 



36 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

is taken out of the head ; but no vision ensues. Even 
when it is in its proper place, and perfectly sound, it is 
well known that an obstruction in the optic nerve takes 
away vision, though the eye has performed all that be- 
longs to it. 

If any thing more were necessary to be said on a 
point so evident, we might observe, that, if the faculty 
of seeing were in the eye, that of hearing in the ear, 
and so of the other senses, the necessary consequence 
of this would be, that the thinking principle, which I 
call myself, is not one, but many. But this is contrary 
to the irresistible conviction of every man. "When I 
say, I see, I hear, I feel, I remember, this implies that 
it is one and the same self that performs all these op- 
erations; and as it would be absurd to say, that my 
memory, another man's imagination, and a third man's 
reason, may make one .individual intelligent being, it 
would be equally absurd to say, that one piece of mat- 
ter seeing, another hearing, and a third feeling, may 
make one and the same percipient being. 

2. A second law of our nature regarding perception 
is, that we perceive no object, unless some impression is 
made upon the organ of sense, either by the immediate 
application of the object, or by some medium which 
passes between the object and the organ. 

In two of our senses, to wit, touch and taste, there 
must be an immediate application of the object to the 
organ. In the other three, the object is perceived at a 
distance, but still by means of a medium by which 
some impression is made upon the organ.* 

The effluvia of bodies drawn into the nostrils with 

* This distinction of a mediate and immediate object, or of an object and 
a medium, in perception, is inaccurate, and a source of sad confusion. We 
perceive, and can perceive, nothing but what is in relation to the organ, 
and nothing is in relation to the organ that is not present to it. All the 
senses are, in fact, modifications of touch, as Democritus of old taught. 
We reach the distant reality, not by sense, not by perception, but by infer- 
ence. Thus it is inaccurate to say, as Reid does in the next sentence, 
that " the effluvia of bodies " are " the medium of smell." Nothing 
is smelt but the effluvia themselves. They constitute the total onject 
of perception in smell. Reid, however, in this only follows his predeces- 
sors. — H. 



OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 37 

the breath are the medium of smell ; the undulations 
of the air are the medium of hearing ; and the rays of 
light passing from visible objects to the eye are the 
medium of sight. We see no object unless rays of 
light come from it to the eye. We hear not the sound 
of any body, unless the vibrations of some elastic me- 
dium, occasioned by the tremulous motion of the 
sounding body, reach our ear. We perceive no smell, 
unless the effluvia of the smelling body enter into the 
nostrils. We perceive no taste, unless the sapid body 
be applied to the tongue, or some part of the organ of 
taste. Nor do we perceive any tangible quality of a 
body, unless it touch the hands, or some part of our 
body. 

These are facts known from experience to hold uni- 
versally and invariably, both in men and brutes. By 
this law of our nature, our powers of perceiving exter- 
nal objects are further limited and circumscribed. Nor 
can we give any other reason for this, than that it is 
the will of our Maker, who knows best what powers, 
and what degrees of them, are suited to our state. We 
were once in a state, (I mean in the womb,) wherein 
our powers of perception were more limited than in the 
present, and in a future state they may be more en- 
larged. 

3. It is likewise a law of our nature, that, in order to 
our perceiving objects, the impressions made upon the 
organs of sense must be communicated to the nerves, and 
by them to the brain. This is perfectly known to those 
who know any thing of anatomy. 

The nerves are fine cords, which pass from the brain, 
or from the spinal marrow, which is a prolongation of 
the brain, to all parts of the body, dividing into smaller 
branches as they proceed, until at last they escape our 
eyesight; and it is found by experience, that all the 
voluntary and involuntary motions of the body are 
performed by their means. When the nerves that serve 
any limb are cut, or tied hard, we have then no more 
power to move that limb than if it was no part of the 
body. 

4 



38 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

As there are nerves that serve the muscular motions, 
so there are others that serve the several senses ; and as 
without the former we cannot move a limb, so without 
the latter we can have no perception. 

This train of machinery the wisdom of God has 
made necessary to our perceiving objects. Various 
parts of the body concur to it, and each has its own 
function. First the object, either immediately or by 
some medium, must make an impression on the organ. 
The organ serves only as a medium, by which an im- 
pression is made on the nerve ; and the nerve serves as 
a medium to make an impression upon the brain. 
Here the material part ends ; at least, we can trace it 
no farther; the rest is all intellectual. 

The proof of these impressions upon the nerves and 
brain in perception is this, — that, from many observa- 
tions and experiments, it is found, that, when the organ 
of any sense is perfectly sound, and has the impression 
made upon it by the object ever so strongly, yet, if the 
nerve which serves that organ be cut or tied hard, there 
is no perception ; and it is well known, that disorders 
in the brain deprive us of the power of perception, 
when both the organ and its nerve are sound. 

There is, therefore, sufficient reason to conclude, that, 
in perception, the object produces some change in the 
organ ; that the organ produces some change upon the 
nerve ; and that the nerve produces some change in the 
brain. And we give the name of an impression to 
those changes, because we have not a name more prop- 
er to express, in a general manner, any change pro- 
duced in a body by an external cause, without specify- 
ing the nature of that change. "Whether it be pressure, 
or attraction, or repulsion, or vibration, or something 
unknown, for which we have no name, still it may be 
called an impression. But with regard to the particu- 
lar kind of this change or impression, philosophers have 
never been able to discover any thing at all. 

But, whatever be the nature of those impressions 
upon the organs, nerves, and brain, we perceive nothing 
without them. Experience informs us that it is so; 



OF THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 39 

but we cannot give a reason why it is so. In the con- 
stitution of man, perception, by fixed laws of nature, 
is connected with those impressions; but we can dis- 
cover no necessary connection. The Supreme Being 
has seen fit to limit our power of perception, so that 
we perceive not without such impressions ; and this is 
all we know of the matter. 

This, however, we have reason to conclude in gen- 
eral, — that, as the impressions on the organs, nerves, 
and brain, correspond exactly to the nature and con- 
ditions of the objects by which they are made, so our 
perceptions and sensations correspond to those impres- 
sions, and vary in kind, and in degree, as they vary. 
Without this exact correspondence, the information we 
receive by our senses would not only be imperfect, as 
it undoubtedly is, but would be fallacious, which we 
have no reason to think it is* 

* Physiologists will not allow us to hold the doctrine taught in this 
chapter in such a sense as to exclude what are called subjective sensations. 
" Every one," says Mailer, " is aware how common it is to see bright 
colors while the eyes are closed, particularly in the morning, when the 
.irritability of the nerves is still considerable. These phenomena are very 
frequent in children after waking from sleep. Through the sense of vis- 
ion, we receive from external nature no impressions which we may not 
also experience from internal excitement of our nerves ; and it is evident 
that a person blind from infancy, in consequence of opacity of the trans- 
parent media of the eye, must have a perfect internal conception of light 
and colors, provided the retina and optic nerve be free from lesion. The 
prevalent notions with regard to the wonderful sensations supposed to be 
experienced by persons blind from birth, when their sight is restored by 
operation, are exaggerated and incorrect. The elements of the sensation 
of vision, namely, the sensations of light, color, and darkness, must have 
been previously as well known to such persons as to those of whom the 
sight has always been perfect. The sensations of hearing, also, are ex- 
cited as well by internal as by external causes; for whenever the auditory 
nerve is in a state of excitement, the sensations peculiar to it, as the 
sounds of ringing, humming, &c, are produced. No further proof is 
wanting, to show that external influences give rise in our senses to no 
other sensations than those which may be excited in the corresponding 
nerves by internal causes." — Elements, Vol. II. p. 1060. 

Carpenter explains the possibility of these phenomena by observing, — 
"With regard to all kinds of sensation, it is to be remembered that the 
change of which the mind is informed is not the change at the peripheral 
extremities of the nerves, but the change communicated to the sensorium ; 
hence it results, that external agencies can give rise to no kind of sensa- 
tion which cannot also he produced by internal causes, exciting changes 
in the condition of the nerves in their course." — Pri/iciples, § 310. — Ed. 



40 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

CHAPTER II. 

HARTLEY'S THEORY OE VIBRATIONS. 

I. Historical Notices.] We are informed by anato- 
mists, that although the two coats which inclose a 
nerve, and which it derives from the coats of the brain, 
are tough and elastic, yet the nerve itself has a very 
small degree of consistence, being almost like marrow. 
It has, however, a fibrous texture, and may be divided 
and subdivided, till its fibres escape our senses. And 
as we know so very little about the texture of the 
nerves, there is great room left for those who choose to 
indulge themselves in conjecture. 

The ancients conjectured that the nervous fibres are 
fine tubes, filled with a very subtile spirit or vapor, which 
they called animal spirits ; that the brain is a gland, by 
which the animal spirits are secreted from the finer part 
of the blood, and their continual waste repaired ; and 
that it is by these animal spirits that the nerves per- 
form their functions. Descartes has shown how, by 
these animal spirits going and returning in the nerves, 
muscular motion, perception, memory, and imagination 
are effected. All this he has described as distinctly as 
if he had been an eyewitness of all those operations. 
But it happens that the tubular structure of the nerves 
was never perceived by the human eye, nor shown by 
the nicest injections; and all that has been said about 
animal spirits, through more than fifteen centuries, is 
mere conjecture. 

Dr. Briggs, who was Sir Isaac Newton's master in 
anatomy, was the first, as far as I know, who advanced 
a new system concerning the nerves.* He conceived 

* Brings was not the first. The Jesuit, Honoratus Fabry, had before 
him denied the old hypothesis of spirits ; and the new hypothesis of cere- 
bral fibres or fibrils, by which he explains the phenomena of sense, imagi- 
nation, and memory, is not only the first, but perhaps the most ingenious 
of the class that has been proposed. Yet the very name of Fabry is 



THEORY OF VIBRATIONS. HARTLEY. 41 

them to be solid filaments of prodigious tenuity ; and 
this opinion, as it accords better with observation, 
seems to have been more generally received since his 
time. As to the manner of performing their office, Dr. 
Briggs thought, that, like musical cords, they have 
vibrations differing according to their length and ten- 
sion. They seem, however, very unfit for this purpose, 
on account of their want of tenacity, their moisture, 
and being through their whole length in contact with 
moist substances : so that, although Dr. Briggs wrote a 
book upon this system, called Nova Visionis Theoria, 
it seems not to have been much followed. 

Sir Isaac Newton, in all his philosophical writings, 
took great care to distinguish his doctrines, which he 
intended to prove by just induction, from his conjec- 
tures, which were to stand or fall, according as future 
experiments and observations should establish or refute 
them. His conjectures he has put in the form of que- 
ries, that they might not be received as truths, but be 
inquired into, and determined according to the evidence 
to be found for or against them. Those who mistake 
his queries for a part of his doctrine do him great in- 
justice, and degrade him to the rank of the common 
herd of philosophers, who have, in all ages, adulterated 
philosophy by mixing conjecture with truth, and their 
own fancies with the oracles of nature. Among other 
queries, this truly great philosopher proposed this, — 
Whether there may not be an elastic medium, or ether, 
immensely more rare than air, which pervades all 
bodies, and which is the cause of gravitation ; of the 
refraction and reflection of the rays of light; of the 
transmission of heat, through spaces void of air; and 
of many other phenomena? In the 23d query sub- 
joined to his Optics, he puts this question, with regard 
to the impressions made on the nerves and brain in 
perception, — Whether vision is effected chiefly by the 



wholly unnoticed by those historians of philosophy who do not deem it 
superfluous to dwell on the tiresome reveries of Briggs, Hartley, and Bon- 
net. — II . 

4* 



42 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

vibrations of this medium, excited in the bottom of the 
eye by the rays of light, and propagated along the 
solid, pellucid, and uniform capillaments of the optic 
nerve? And whether hearing is effected by the vibra- 
tions of this or some other medium, excited by the 
tremor of the air in the auditory nerves, and propagated 
along the solid, pellucid, and uniform capillaments of 
those nerves ? And so with regard to the other senses. 

What Newton only proposed as a matter to be in- 
quired into, Dr. Hartley conceived to have such evi- 
dence, that, in his Observations on Man, he has deduced, 
in a mathematical form, a very ample system concern- 
ing the faculties of the mind, from the doctrine of 
vibrations, joined with that of association.* 

His notion of the vibrations excited in the nerves is 
expressed in the fourth and fifth Propositions in Part I. 
Chap. I. Sect. I. " Proposition 4. External objects im- 
pressed on the senses occasion, first in the nerves on 
which they are impressed, and then in the brain, vibra- 
tions of the small, and, as one may say, infinitesimal 
medullary particles. Proposition 5. The vibrations 
mentioned in the last proposition are excited, propa- 
gated, and kept up, partly by the ether, that is, by a 
very subtile elastic fluid : partly by the uniformity, con- 
tinuity, softness, and active powers of the medullary 
substance of the brain, spinal marrow, and nerves." 

The modesty and diffidence with which Dr. Hartley 
offers his system to the world, by desiring his reader 
" to expect nothing but hints and conjectures in diffi- 
cult and obscure matters, and a short detail of the prin- 
cipal reasons and evidences in those that are clear ; by 
acknowledging that he shall not be able to execute, 
with any accuracy, the proper method of philosophiz- 

* David Hartley was bom at Armley, in the county of York, August 
30, 1705, and died at Bath, August 28, 1757- His Observations were first 
published in 1749. Pistorius translated the work into German, with valu- 
able " Notes and Additions," which are now commonly appended, in Eng- 
lish, to the best editions of the original. In the Metaphysical Tracts by 
English Philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, there is one, Conjecturce qucc- 
dam de Se?isu, Motu, et Idearum Generatione, which is ascribed to Hartley. 
— Ed. 



THEORY OF VIBRATIONS. HARTLEY. 43 

ing, recommended and followed by Sir Isaac Newton ; 
and that he will attempt a sketch only for the benefit 
of future inquirers," — seem to forbid any criticism 
upon it. One cannot, without reluctance, criticize 
what is proposed in such a manner, and with so good 
intention ; yet, as the tendency of this system of vibra- 
tions is to make all the operations of the mind mere 
mechanism, dependent on the laws of matter and 
motion, and as it has been held forth by its votaries as 
in a manner demonstrated, I shall make some remarks 
on that part of the system which relates to the impres- 
sions made on the nerves and brain in perception. 

II. Refutation of the Theory.] It may be observed, 
in general, that Dr. Hartley's work consists of a chain 
of propositions, with their proofs and corollaries, di- 
gested in good order, and in a scientific form. A great 
part of them, however, are, as he candidly acknowl- 
edges, conjectures and hints only; yet these are mixed 
with the propositions legitimately proved, without any 
distinction. Corollaries are drawn from them, and 
other propositions grounded upon them, which, all 
taken together, make up a system. A system of this 
kind resembles a chain, of which some links are abun- 
dantly strong, others very weak. The strength of the 
chain is determined by that of the weakest links; for if 
they give way, the whole falls to pieces, and the weight 
supported by it falls to the ground. 

As to the vibrations and vibratiuncles, whether of an 
elastic ether, or of the infinitesimal particles of the 
brain and nerves, there may be such things for what 
we know, and men may rationally inquire whether 
they can find any evidence of their existence; but 
while we have no proof of their existence, to apply 
them to the solution of phenomena, and to build a sys- 
tem upon them, is what I conceive we call building a 
castle in the air. 

When men pretend to account for any of the opera- 
tions of nature, the causes assigned by them ought, as 
Sir Isaac Newton has taught us, to have two conditions, 



44 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

otherwise they are good for nothing. First, They ought 
to be true, to have a real existence, and not to be barely 
conjectured to exist, without proof. Secondly, They 
ought to be sufficient to produce the effect. 

As to the existence of vibratory motions in the medul- 
lary substance of the nerves and brain, the evidence 
produced is this: — First, It is observed, that the sen- 
sations of seeing and hearing, and some sensations of 
touch, have some short duration and continuance. 
Secondly, Though there be no direct evidence that the 
sensations of taste and smell, and the greater part of 
those of touch, have the like continuance; yet, says the 
author, analogy would incline one to believe, that they 
must resemble the sensations of sight and hearing in 
this particular. Thirdly, The continuance of all our 
sensations being thus established, it follows that ex- 
ternal objects impress vibratory motions on the medul- 
lary substance of the nerves and brain ; because no 
motion besides a vibratory one can reside in any part 
for a moment of time. 

This is the chain of proof; in which the first link is 
strong, being confirmed by experience ; the second is 
very weak ; and the third still weaker. For other kinds 
of motion, besides that of vibration, may have some 
continuance, such as rotation, bending or unbending of 
a spring, and perhaps others which we are unacquainted 
with : nor do we know whether it is motion that is pro- 
duced in the nerves ; it may be pressure, attraction, 
repulsion, or something we do not know. This, indeed, 
is the common refuge of all hypotheses, that we know 
no other way in which the phenomena may be pro- 
duced, and therefore they must be produced in this 
way. There is, therefore, no proof of vibrations in 
the infinitesimal particles of the brain and nerves. 

It may be thought that the existence of an elastic 
vibrating ether stands on a firmer foundation, having 
the authority of Sir Isaac Newton. But it ought to be 
observed, that although this great man had formed con- 
jectures about this ether near fifty years before he died, 
and had it in his eye during that long space as a sub- 



THEORY OF VIBRATIONS. HARTLEY. 45 

ject of inquiry, yet it does not appear that he' ever 
found any convincing proof of its existence, but con- 
sidered it to the last as a question whether there be such 
an ether or not. In the premonition to the reader, pre- 
fixed to the second edition of his Optics, anno 1717, he 
expresses himself thus with regard to it: — " Lest any 
one should think that I place gravity among the essen- 
tial properties of bodies, I have subjoined one question 
concerning its cause ; a question, I say, for I do not 
hold it as a thing established." If, therefore, we regard 
the authority of Sir Isaac Newton, we ought to hold 
the existence of such an ether as a matter not estab- 
lished by proof, but to be examined into by experi- 
ments ; and I have never heard that, since his time, any 
new evidence has been found of its existence. 

Vibrations and vibratiuncles of the medullary sub- 
stance of the nerves and brain are assigned by Dr. 
Hartley to account for all our sensations and ideas, 
and, in a word, for all the operations of our minds. 
Let us consider very briefly how far they are sufficient 
for that purpose. 

He proposes his sentiments with great candor, and 
they ought not to be carried beyond what his words 
express. He thinks it a consequence of his theory, that 
matter, if it can be endued with the most simple kinds 
of sensation, might arrive at all that intelligence of 
which the human mind is possessed. He thinks that 
his theory overturns all the arguments that are usually 
brought for the immateriality of the soul, from the sub- 
tilty of the internal senses, and of the rational faculty ; 
but he does not take upon him to determine whether 
matter can be endued with sensation or no. He even 
acknowledges, that matter and motiorf, however sub- 
tilely divided and reasoned upon, yield nothing more 
than matter and motion still; and therefore he would 
not be any way interpreted so as to oppose the imma- 
teriality of the. soul. 

It would, therefore, be unreasonable to require that 
his theory of vibrations should, in the proper sense, ac- 
count for our sensations. It would, indeed, be ridicu- 



46 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

lous in any man to pretend, that thought of any kind 
must necessarily result from motion, or that vibrations 
in the nerves must necessarily produce thought, any 
more than the vibrations of a pendulum. Dr. Hartley 
disclaims this way of thinking, and therefore it ought 
not to be imputed to him. All that he pretends is, 
that, in the human constitution, there is a certain con- 
nection between vibrations in the medullary substance 
of the nerves and brain, and the thoughts of the mind; 
so that the last depend entirely upon the first, and 
every kind of thought in the mind arises in conse- 
quence of a corresponding vibration, or vibratiuncle, in 
the nerves and brain. Our sensations arise from vibra- 
tions, and our ideas from vibratiuncles, or miniature 
vibrations ; and he comprehends, under these two words 
of sensations and ideas, all the operations of the mind. 

But how can we expect any proof of the connection 
between vibrations and thought, when the existence of 
such vibrations was never proved. The proof of their 
connection cannot be stronger than the proof of their 
existence: for, as the author acknowledges that we 
cannot infer the existence of the thoughts from the ex- 
istence of the vibrations, it is no less evident that we 
cannot infer the existence of vibrations from the exist- 
ence of our thoughts. The existence of both must be 
known before we can know their connection. As to 
the existence of our thoughts, we have the evidence of 
consciousness ; a kind of evidence that never was called 
in question. But as to the existence of vibrations in 
the medullary substance of the nerves and brain, no 
proof has yet been brought. 

All, therefore, we have to expect from this hypothe- 
sis is, that, in* vibrations considered abstractly, there 
should be a variety in kind and degree, which tallies so 
exactly with the varieties of the thoughts they are to 
account for, as may lead us to suspect some connec- 
tion between the one and the other. If the divisions 
and subdivisions of thought be found to run parallel 
with the divisions and subdivisions of vibrations, this 
would give that kind of plausibility to the hypothesis 



THEORY OF VIBRATIONS. HARTLEY. 47 

of their connection which we commonly expect in a 
mere hypothesis ; but we do not find even this. 

Philosophers have accounted in some degree for our 
various sensations of sound, by the vibrations of elastic 
air. But it is to be observed, first, that we know that 
such vibrations do really exist ; and, secondly, that they 
tally exactly with the most remarkable phenomena of 
sound. We cannot, indeed, show how any vibration 
should produce the sensation of sound. This must be 
resolved into the will of God, or into some cause alto- 
gether unknown. But we know, that as the vibration 
is strong or weak, the sound is loud or soft. We 
know^ that as the vibration is quick or slow, the sound 
is acute or grave. We can point out that relation of 
synchronous vibrations which produces harmony or 
discord, and that relation of successive vibrations which 
produces melody : and all this is not conjectured, but 
proved by a sufficient induction. This account of 
sounds, therefore, is philosophical ; although, perhaps, 
there may be many things relating to sound that we 
cannot account for, and of which the causes remain 
latent. The connections described in this branch of 
philosophy are the work of God, and not the fancy of 
men. 

If any thing similar to this could be shown in ac- 
counting for all our sensations by vibrations in the me- 
dullary substance of the nerve and brain, it would de- 
serve a place in sound philosophy. But when we are 
told of vibrations in a substance, which no man could 
ever prove to have vibrations, or to be capable of them; 
when such imaginary vibrations are brought to account 
for all our sensations, though we can perceive no corre- 
spondence, in their variety of kind and. degree, to the va- 
riety of sensations ; the connections described in such a 
system are the creatures of human imagination, not the 
work of God. 

The rays of light make an impression upon the optic 
nerves ; but they make none upon the auditory or 
olfactory. The vibrations of the air make an impres- 
sion upon the auditory nerves; but none upon the op- 



48 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

tic or the olfactory. The effluvia of bodies make an 
impression upon the olfactory nerves ; but make none 
upon the optic or auditory. No man has been able to 
give a shadow of reason for this. While this is the 
case, is it not better to confess our ignorance of the 
nature of those impressions made upon the nerves and 
brain in perception, than to flatter our pride with the 
conceit of knowledge which we have not, and to adul- 
terate philosophy with the spurious brood of hypoth- 
eses ? * 



CHAPTER III. 



FALSE CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE CONNECTION 
BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND IMPRESSIONS MADE ON 
THE ORGANS OF SENSE. 

I. (1.) That the Mind is Material, and Perception the 
Result of Mechanism.] Some philosophers among the 
ancients, as well as among the moderns, imagined that 
man is nothing but a piece of matter so curiously or- 
ganized, that the impressions of external objects produce 
in it sensation, perception, remembrance, and all the other 
operations ive are conscious of This foolish opinion 
could only take its rise from observing the constant 
connection which the Author of nature has established 
between certain impressions made upon our senses, 
and our perception of the objects by which the impres- 
sion is made ; from which they weakly inferred, that 

* Reid appears to have been unacquainted with the works and theory of 
Bonnet. With our author's strictures on the physiological hypotheses, the 
reader may compare those of Tetens, in his Versuche, and of Stewart, in 
bis Philosophical Essays. — H. 

Haller took pains to refute the theory of vibrations in his Elemeitta Phy- 
siologies, Vol. IV. Sect VIII., Art. Conjectures. For some account of the 
writers who have advocated it, see Blakey's History of the Philosophy of 
Mind, Vol. III. Chap XVII. Dr. Priestley published an octavo volume, 
in 1775, containing a portion of Dr Hartley's great work, with this title: 
Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the Association of 
Ideas, with Essays on the Subject of it. — Ed. 



FALSE CONCLUSIONS. 49 

those impressions were the proper efficient causes of 
the corresponding perception. 

But no reasoning is more fallacious than this, that, 
because two things are always conjoined, therefore one 
must be the cause of the other. Day and night have 
been joined in a constant succession since the begin- 
ning of the world ; but who is so foolish as to conclude 
from this that day is the cause of night, or night the 
cause of the following day ? There is indeed nothing 
more ridiculous than to imagine that any motion or 
modification of matter should produce thought. 

If one should tell of a telescope so exactly made as 
to have the power of seeing; of a whispering gallery 
that had the pow T er of hearing ; of a cabinet so nicely 
framed as to have the power of memory ; or of a ma- 
chine so delicate as to feel pain when it was touched,, 
— such absurdities are so shocking to common sense, 
that they would not find belief even among savages : 
yet it is the same absurdity to think that the impres- 
sions of external objects upon the machine of our bod- 
ies can be the real efficient cause of thought and per- 
ception. 

II. (2.) That an Impression is made on the Mind, as 
well as on the Organs of Sense.] Another conclusion 
sometimes drawn by philosophers is, that in perception 
an impression is made upon the mind, as well as upon 
the organ, nerves, and brain. Mr. Locke affirms very 
positively, that the ideas of external objects are pro- 
duced in our minds by impulse, " that being the only 
way we can conceive bodies to operate in." It ought, 
however, to be observed, in justice to Mr. Locke, that 
he retracted this notion in his first letter to the Bishop 
of Worcester, and promised in the next edition of his 
Essay to have that passage rectified ; but either from 
forgetfulness in the author, or negligence in the printer, 
the passage remains in all the subsequent editions I 
have seen. 

There is no prejudice more natural to man, than to 
conceive of the mind as having some similitude to 
5 



50 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

body in its operations. Hence men have been prone 
to imagine, that, as bodies are put in motion by some 
impulse or impression made upon them by contiguous 
bodies, so the mind is made to think and to perceive 
by some impression made upon it, or some impulse 
given to it, by contiguous objects. If we have such a 
notion of the mind as Homer had of his gods, who 
might be bruised or wounded with swords and spears, 
we may then understand what is meant by impressions 
made upon it by a body. But if we conceive the mind 
to be immaterial, of which I think we have very strong 
proofs, we shall find it difficult to affix a meaning to 
impressions made upon it. 

There is a figurative meaning of impressions on the 
mind which is well authorized, but this meaning ap- 
plies only to objects that are interesting. To say that 
an object which I see with perfect indifference makes 
an impression upon my mind, is not, as I apprehend, 
good English. If philosophers mean no more than 
that I see the object, why should they invent an im- 
proper phrase to express what every man knows how 
to express in plain English ? 

But it is evident, from the manner in which this 
phrase is used by modern philosophers, that they mean 
not merely to express by it my perceiving an object, 
but to explain the manner of perception. They think 
that the object perceived acts upon the mind, in some 
way similar to that in which one body acts upon 
another, by making an impression upon it. The im- 
pression upon the mind is conceived to be something 
wherein the mind is altogether passive, and has some 
effect produced on it by the object. But this is a hy- 
pothesis which contradicts the common sense of man- 
kind, and which ought not to be admitted without 
proof. When I look upon the ^vall of my room, the 
wall does not act at all, nor is it capable of acting ; the 
perceiving it is an act or operation in me. That this 
is the common apprehension of mankind with regard 
to perception, is evident from the manner of expressing 
it in all languages* 



FALSE CONCLUSIONS. 51 

The vulgar give themselves no trouble how they per- 
ceive objects. They express what they are conscious 
of, and they express it with propriety; but philosophers 
have an avidity to know how we perceive objects ; and, 
conceiving some similitude between a body that is put 
in motion and a mind that is made to perceive, they 
are led to think, that, as the body must receive some 
impulse to make it move, so the mind must receive 
some impulse or impression to make it perceive. This 
analogy seems to be confirmed, by observing that we 
perceive objects only when they make some impression 
upon the organs of sense, and upon the nerves and 
brain ; but it ought to be observed, that such is the na- 
ture of body, that it cannot change its state, but by 
some force impressed upon it. This is not the nature of 
mind. All that we know about it shows it to be in its 
nature living and active, and to have the power of per- 
ception in its constitution, but still within those limits 
to which it is confined by the laws of nature. 

It appears, therefore, that this phrase of the mind's 
having impressions made upon it by corporeal objects 
in perception, is either a phrase without any distinct 
meaning, and contrary to the propriety of the English 
language, or it is grounded upon an hypothesis which is 
destitute of proof. On that account, though we grant 
that in perception there is an impression made upon 
the organ of sense, and upon the nerves and brain, we 
do not admit that the object makes any impression 
upon the mind. 

III. (3.) That these Impressions leave Images in the 
Brain which are the only Immediate Objects of Percep- 
tion.] There is another conclusion drawn from the im- 
pressions made upon the brain in perception, which I 
conceive to have no solid foundation, though it has 
been adopted very generally by philosophers. It is, that 
by the impressions made on the brain, images are formed 
of the object perceived; and that the mind, being seated 
in the brain as its chamber of presence, immediately per- 
ceives (hose images only, and has no perception of the 
external object but by them. 



52 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

Now, with regard to this hypothesis, there are three 
things that deserve to be considered, because the hy- 
pothesis leans upon them ; and if any one of thein fail, 
it must fall to the ground. The first is, that the soul 
has its seat, or, as Mr. Locke calls it, " its presence- 
room," in the brain. The second, that there are images 
formed in the brain of all the objects of sense. The 
third, that the mind or soul perceives these images in 
the brain ; and that it perceives not external objects 
immediately, but only by means of their images. 

As to the first point, that the soul has its seat in the 
brain, this, surely, is not so well established as that we 
can safely build other principles upon it. There have 
been various opinions and much disputation about the 
place of spirits ; whether they have a place, and if they 
have, how they occupy that place. After men had 
fought in the dark about these points for ages, the wiser 
part seem to have left off disputing about them, as 
matters beyond the reach of the human faculties. 

As to the second point, that images of all the objects 
of sense are formed in the brain, we may venture to 
affirm that there is no proof nor probability of this, 
with regard to any of the objects of sense; and that 
with regard to the greater part of them, it is words 
without any meaning. 

That external objects make some impression on the 
organs of sense, and by them on the nerves and brain, 
is granted ; but that those impressions resemble the ob- 
jects they are made by, so as that they may be called 
images of the objects, is most improbable. Every hy- 
pothesis that has been contrived shows that there can 
be no such resemblance ; for neither the motions of 
animal spirits, nor the vibrations of elastic chords, or of 
elastic ether, or of the infinitesimal particles of the 
nerves, can be supposed to resemble the objects by 
which they are excited. 

We know that, in vision, an image of the visible 
object is formed in the bottom of the eye by the rays 
of light. But we know also, that this image cannot 
be conveyed to the brain, because the optic nerve, and 



FALSE CONCLUSIONS. 53 

all the parts that surround it, are opaque and imper- 
vious to the rays of light ; and there is no other organ 
of sense in which any image of the object is formed. 

It is further to be observed, that, with regard to some 
objects of sense, we may understand what is meant by 
an image of them imprinted on the brain ; but with 
regard to most objects of sense, the phrase is absolutely 
unintelligible, and conveys no meaning at all. As to 
objects of sight, I understand what is meant by an 
image of their figure in the brain. But how shall we 
conceive an image of their color, where there is abso- 
lute darkness ? And as to all other objects of sense, 
except figure and color, I am unable to conceive what 
is meant by an image of them. Let any man say 
what he means by an image of heat or cold, an image 
of hardness or softness, an image of sound, of smell, or 
taste. The word image, when applied to these objects 
of sense, has absolutely no meaning. Upon what a 
weak foundation, then, does this hypothesis stand, 
when it supposes that images of all the objects of sense 
are imprinted on the brain, being conveyed thither by 
the conduits of the organs and nerves. 

The third point in this hypothesis is, that the mind 
perceives the images in the brain, and external objects 
only by means of them. This is as improbable, as that 
there are such images to be perceived. If our powers 
of perception be not altogether fallacious, the objects 
we perceive are not in our brain, but without us. We 
are so far from perceiving images in the brain, that we 
do not perceive our brain at all; nor would any man 
ever have known that he had a brain, if anatomy had 
not discovered, by dissection, that the brain is a con- 
stituent part of the human body. 

To sum up what has been said with regard to the 
organs of perception, and the impressions made upon 
our nerves and brain. It is a law of our nature, estab- 
lished by the will of the Supreme Being, that we per- 
ceive no external object but by means of the organs 
given us for that purpose. But these organs do not 
perceive. The eye is the organ of sight, but it sees not. 
5* 



54 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

A telescope is an artificial organ of sight. The eye is 
a natural organ of sight, but it sees as little as the tel- 
escope. We know how the eye forms a picture of the 
visible object upon the retina; but how this picture 
makes us see the object we know not ; and if experi- 
ence had not informed us that such a picture is neces- 
sary to vision, we should never have known it. We 
can give no reason why the picture on the retina should 
be followed by vision, while a like picture on any other 
part of the body produces nothing like vision. 

It is likewise a law of our nature, that we perceive 
not external objects, unless certain impressions be made 
by the object upon the organ, and by means of the 
organ upon the nerves and brain. But of the nature 
of those impressions we are perfectly ignorant; and 
though they are conjoined with perception by the will 
of our Maker, yet it does not appear that they have 
any necessary connection with it in their own nature, 
far less that they can be the proper efficient cause of it. 
We perceive, because God has given us the power of 
perceiving, and not because we have impressions from 
objects. We perceive nothing without those impres- 
sions, because our Maker has limited and circum- 
scribed our powers of perception by such laws of 
nature as to his wisdom seemed meet, and such as 
suited our rank in his creation.* • 



* In noticing the benefit accruing to psychology from recent physiologi- 
cal investigations, Mr. Morell observes: — "The phantasms of Aristotle, 
the animal spirits of Descartes, the vibrations of Hartley, and all such 
speculations, are virtually moved out of the road by a closer examination 
of the facts of the case, and thus prevented from encumbering the move- 
ments of scientific research. In opposition to such notions, it has been 
discovered that the different kinds of nerves have specific qualities of their 
own, and that, instead of conveying impressions, they give rise to certain 
phenomena simply by the excitement of their own properties." 

He adds : — "At the same time, it is of great importance that the two 
sciences should each hold their proper limits, and that the one should not 
be allowed to assume the ground which peculiarly belongs to the other. 
To mark the boundaries of physiology and psychology we must simply 
inquire, what are the phenomena which we learn by consciousness, and what 
those which we learn by outward observation. These two regions lie en- 
tirety without each other ; so much so, that there is not a single fact known 
by consciousness, which we should ever have learned by external obser- 



OF PERCEPTION PROPER. 55 

CHAPTER IV. 

OF PERCEPTION, PROPERLY SO CALLED. 

I, Known by Consciousness and Reflection alone.] In 
speaking of the impressions made on our organs in per- 

vaticm, and not a single fact known by external observation of which we 
are ever conscious. A sensation, for example, is known simply by con- 
sciousness; the material conditions of it, as seen in the organ and the 
nervous system, simply by external observation. No one could ever see a 
sensation, or be conscious of the organic action ; accordingly, the one fact 
belongs to psychology, the other to physiology " 

On this distinction he refers to a passage in Jouffroy, given by us in a 
note to Chap. IV. of the Preliminary Essay, but remarks, that " Jouffroy 
carries his views on this point too far In the phenomena of muscular 
action, we have the uniting point of the two sciences, the link which indis- 
solubly connects the science of mind with that of organic matter." 

In this connection lie also speaks of phrenology, the real merit of which 
is, as he contends, " that it has directed inquiry to the structure of the 
brain and the nervous system, and succeeded in drawing forth many inter- 
esting facts, which otherwise would have been to this time enveloped in 
darkness. Had it been content with taking its place as one peculiar 
branch of human physiology, it would have appeared in a light perfectly 
unobjectionable to the most rigidly philosophical minds ; but its ambition 
has, to a great extent, been its bane." 

He then shows, at some length, that it can never serve as the basis of a 
new system of intellectual philosophy. A brief extract must suffice : — 
"I will suppose, for a moment, that we knew nothing whatever reflectively 
of our own mental operations ; that the study of the human mind had not 
yet been commenced ; that none of its phenomena had been classified; 
and that we were to begin our investigation of them upon the phrenological 
system, some notion of which had been previously communicated to us : 
we might in this case proceed with our operations with the greatest ardor, 
and examine skull after skull for a century ; but this would not give us the 
least notion of any peculiar mental faculty, or aid us in the smallest degree in 
classifying mental phenomena. We could never know that the organs of the 
reasoning powers were in front, and those of the moral feelings upon the 
top of the head, unless we had first made those powers and feelings inde- 
pendently the objects of our examination. The whole march of phrenology 
goes upon the supposition, that there is a system of intellectual philosophy 
already in the mind, and its whole aim is to show where the seat, materi- 
ally speaking, of the faculties we have already observed really is to be 
found." 

" The Phrenological Journal admits," he adds in a note to his second 
edition, " that we must know our mental phenomena reflectively, before we 
can allocate them, — but still persists in calling cerebral observation a 
method of studying psychology. I confess myself unable to see what 
psychological truth it unfolds, that is not clear without it. Does it reveal a 



56 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

oeption, we build upon facts borrowed from anatomy 
and physiology, for which we have the testimony of 
our senses. But being now to speak of perception 
itself, which is solely an act of the mind, we must 
appeal to another authority. The operations of our 
minds are known, not by sense, but by consciousness, 
the authority of which is as certain and as irresistible 
as that of sense.* 



mental fact? Not one. These are all facts of consciousness. Does it give 
us a classification ? No. 'We must know,' (I quote the critic,) 'from 
our consciousness, the distinction between thoughts and feelings, before we 
can trace their connection with particular parts of the brain.' Does it 
define a single faculty or feeling, or give us any clew to the class of phe- 
nomena to which it should belong 1 No. The decision as to the class of 
phenomena to which any mental fact belongs is left to the mind's reflective 
judgment, which would be quite unaltered wherever the organ of it might 
be found." — Historical and Critical View of the Speculative Philosophy of 
Europe in the Nineteenth Century, Chap. IV. Sect. I. 

For further information respecting the physiological conditions of per- 
ception and the other mental phenomena, see a small tract by Dr. Barlow, 
0??. the Connection between Physiology and Intellectual Science. Muller's Ele- 
ments, already referred to. The American edition of the English transla- 
tion omits many passages interesting to the psychologist. Tissot, Anthro- 
pologic Virey, Physiologic dans ses Rapports avec la Philosophic. Pritch- 
ard's Review of the Doctrine of a Vital Principle. Green's Vital Dynamics. 
Lawrence's Introduction to Comparative Anatomy and Physiology . Maine de 
Biran, Nouvelles Considerations sur les Rapports du Physique et du Moral de 
V Homme. Jouffroy, Nouveaux Melanges Pkilosophiques, Art. De la Ligiti- 
mete de la Distinction de la Psychologie et de la Physiologic Comte, Phi- 
losophic Positive, Vol. III. Le<;on XLV. — Ed. 

* It is more so. There is no skepticism possible touching the facts of 
consciousness in themselves. We cannot doubt that the phenomena of 
consciousness are real, in so far as we are conscious of them. I cannot 
doubt, for example, that I am actually conscious of a certain feeling of 
fragrance, and of certain perceptions of color, figure, &c, when I see and 
smell a rose. Of the reality of these, as experienced, I cannot doubt, be- 
cause they are facts of consciousness; and of consciousness I cannot 
doubt, because such doubt, being itself an act of consciousness, would con- 
tradict, and consequently annihilate, itself. But of all beyond the mere- 
phenomena of which we are conscious, we may — without fear of self- 
contradiction at least — doubt. I may, for instance, doubt whether the 
rose I see and smell has any existence, beyond a phenomenal existence in 
my consciousness. I cannot doubt that I am conscious of it as something 
different from self, but whether it have, indeed, any reality beyond my 
mind, — whether the not-self be not in truth only self, — that I may philo- 
sophically question. In like manner, I am conscious of the memory of a 
certain past event. Of the contents of this memory, as a phenomenon 
given by consciousness, skepticism is impossible. But I may by possi- 
bility demur to the reality of all beyond these contents, and the sphere of 
present consciousness. — H. 



OF PERCEPTION PROPER. 57 

In order, however, to our having a distinct notion of 
any of the operations of our own minds, it is not enough 
that we be conscious of them, for all men have this 
consciousness: it is further necessary that we attend to 
them while they are exerted, and reflect upon them 
with care, while they are recent and fresh in our mem- 
ory. It is necessary that, by employing ourselves fre- 
quently in this way, we get the habit of this attention 
and reflection ; and therefore, for the proof of facts 
which I shall have occasion to mention upon this sub- 
ject, I can only appeal to the reader's own thoughts, 
whether such facts are not agreeable to what he is con- 
scious of in his own mind. 

II. Three Things implied in every Act of Perception.} 
If, therefore, we attend to that act of our mind which 
we call the perception of an external object of sense, 
we shall find in it these three things. First, some con- 
ception or notion of the object perceived. Secondly, a 
strong and irresistible conviction and belief of its pres- 
ent existence. And, thirdly, that this conviction and 
belief are immediate, and not the effect of reasoning. 

First, It is impossible to perceive an object without 
having some notion or conception of that which we per- 
ceive. We may indeed conceive an object which we 
do not perceive ; but when we perceive the object, we 
must have some conception of it at the same time ; and 
we have commonly a more clear and steady notion of 
the object while we perceive it, than we have from 
memory or imagination when it is not perceived. Yet, 
even in perception, the notion which our senses give of 
the object may be more or less clear, more or less dis- 
tinct, in all possible degrees. 

Thus we see more distinctly an object at a small 
than at a great distance. An object at a great distance 
is seen more distinctly in a clear than in a foggy day. 
An object seen indistinctly with the naked eye, on ac- 
count of its smallness, may be seen distinctly with a 
microscope. The objects in this room will be seen by 
a person in the room less and less distinctly as the light 



58 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

of the day fails ; they pass through all the various de- 
grees of distinctness according to the degrees of the 
light, and at last, in total darkness, they are not seen at 
all. What has been said of the objects of sight is so 
easily applied to the objects of the other senses, that 
the application may be left to the reader. 

In a matter so obvious to every person capable of 
reflection, it is only necessary further to observe, that 
the notion which we get of an object merely by our 
external sense ought not to be confounded with that 
more scientific notion which a man, come to the years 
of understanding, may have of the same object, by 
attending to its various attributes, or to its various 
parts, and their relation to each other and to the whole. 
Thus the notion which a child has of a jack for roast- 
ing meat will be acknowledged to be very different 
from that of a man who understands its construction, 
and perceives the relation of the parts to one another 
and to the whole. The child sees the jack, and every 
part of it, as well as the man : the child, therefore, has 
all the notion of it which sight gives ; whatever there is 
more in the notion which the man forms of it must be 
derived from other powers of the mind, which may 
afterwards be explained. This observation is made 
here only that we may not confound the operations of 
different powers of the mind, which, by being always 
conjoined after we grow up to understanding, are apt 
to pass for one and the same. 

Secondly, In perception we not only have a notion 
more or less distinct of the object perceived, but also an 
irresistible conviction and belief of its existence. This 
is always the case when we are certain that we per- 
ceive it. There may be a perception so faint and indis- 
tinct, as to leave us in doubt whether we perceive the 
object or not. Thus, when a star begins to twinkle as 
the light of the sun withdraws, one may, for a short 
time, think he sees it, without being certain, until the 
perception acquires some strength and steadiness. 
"When a ship just begins to appear on the utmost 
verge of the horizon, we may at first be dubious 



OF PERCEPTION PROPER. 59 

whether we perceive it or not ; but when the percep- 
tion is in any degree clear and steady, there remains 
no doubt of its reality ; and when the reality of the 
perception is ascertained, the existence of the object 
perceived can no longer be doubted. 

By the laws of all nations, in the most solemn ju- 
dicial trials, wherein men's fortunes and lives are at 
stake, the sentence passes according to the testimony 
of eye or ear witnesses of good credit. An upright 
judge will give a fair hearing to every objection that 
can be made to the integrity of a witness, and allow it 
to be possible that he may be corrupted ; but no judge 
will ever suppose that witnesses may be imposed upon 
by trusting to their eyes and ears : and if a skeptical 
counsel should plead against the testimony of the wit- 
nesses, that they had no other evidence for what they 
declared than the testimony of their eyes and ears, and 
that we ought not to put so much faith in our senses 
as to deprive men of life or fortune upon their testi- 
mony, surely no upright judge would admit a plea of 
this kind. I believe no counsel, however skeptical, ever 
dared to offer such an argument ; and, if it was offered, 
it would be rejected with disdain. 

Can any stronger proof be given, that it is the uni- 
versal judgment of mankind, that the evidence of sense 
is a kind of evidence which we may securely rest upon, 
in the most momentous concerns of mankind, — that 
it is a kind of evidence against which we ought not to 
admit any reasoning, and therefore, that to reason either 
for or against it is an insult to common sense ? 

The whole conduct of mankind, in the daily occur- 
rences of life, as well as the solemn procedure of judi- 
catories in the trial of causes civil and criminal, demon- 
strates this. I know of only two exceptions that may 
be offered against this being the universal belief of 
mankind. 

The first exception is that of some lunatics, who 
have been persuaded of things that seem to contradict 
the clear testimony of their senses. It is said there 
have been lunatics and hypochondriacal persons, who 



60 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

seriously believed themselves to be made of glass ; and, 
in consequence of this, lived in continual terror of 
having their brittle frame shivered to pieces. 

All I have to say to this is, that our minds, in our 
present state, are, as well as our bodies, liable to 
strange disorders ; and as we do not judge of the nat- 
ural constitution of the body from the disorders or dis- 
eases to which it is subject from accidents, so neither 
ought we to judge of the natural powers of the mind 
from its disorders, but from its sound state. It is nat- 
ural to man, and common to the species, to have two 
hands and two feet ; yet I have seen a man, and a very 
ingenious one, who was born without either hands or 
feet. It is natural to man to have faculties superior to 
those of brutes ; yet we see some individuals, whose 
faculties are not equal to those of many brutes ; and 
the wisest man may, by various accidents, be reduced 
to this state. General rules that regard those whose 
intellects are sound are not overthrown by instances of 
men whose intellects are hurt by any constitutional or 
accidental disorder. 

The other exception that may be made to the princi- 
ple we have laid down is that of some philosophers, 
who have maintained that the testimony of sense is 
fallacious, and therefore ought never to be trusted. 
Perhaps it might be a sufficient answer to this to say, 
that there is no absurdity, however great, which some 
philosophers have not maintained. It is one thing to 
profess a doctrine of this kind, another seriously to be- 
lieve it, and to be governed by it in the conduct of life. 
It is evident, that a man who did not believe his senses 
could not keep out of harm's way an hour of his life ; 
yet, in all the history of philosophy, we never read of 
any skeptic that ever stepped into fire or water because 
he did not believe his senses, or that showed, in the 
conduct of life, less trust in his senses than other men 
have.* This gives us just ground to apprehend that 

* All this we read, however, in Laertius, of Pyrrho ; and on the author- 
ity of Antigonus Carystius, the great skeptic's contemporary. Whether 
we are to believe the narrative is another question. — H. 



OF PERCEPTION PROPER. 61 

philosophy was never able to conquer that natural be- 
lief which men have in their senses ; and that all their 
subtile reasonings against this belief were never able to 
persuade themselves. 

It appears, therefore, that the clear and distinct tes- 
timony of our senses carries irresistible conviction along 
with it, to every man in his right judgment. 

I observed, thirdly, that this conviction is not only 
irresistible, but it is immediate; that is, it is not by a 
train of reasoning" and argumentation that we come to 
be convinced of the existence of what we perceive. We 
ask no argument for the existence of the object, but 
that we perceive it; perception commands our belief 
upon its J own authority, and disdains to rest its author- 
ity upon any reasoning whatsoever. 

The conviction of a truth may be irresistible, and 
yet not immediate. Thus, my conviction that the 
three angles of every plane triangle are equal to two 
right angles, is irresistible, but it is not immediate: I 
am convinced of it by demonstrative reasoning. There 
are other truths in mathematics of which we have not 
only an irresistible, but an immediate conviction. Such 
are the axioms. Our belief of the axioms in mathe- 
matics is not grounded upon argument, — arguments 
are grounded upon them ; but their evidence is dis- 
cerned immediately by the human understanding. 

It is, no doubt, one thing to have an immediate con- 
viction of a self-evident axiom ; it is another thing to 
have an immediate conviction of the existence of what 
we see : but the conviction is equally immediate and 
equally irresistible in both cases. No man thinks of 
seeking a reason for believing what he sees ; and before 
we are capable of reasoning, we put no less confidence 
in our senses than after. The rudest savage is as fully 
convinced of what he sees, and hears, and feels, as the 
most exoert logician. The constitution of our under- 
standing determines us to hold the truth of a mathe- 
matical axiom as a first principle, from which other 
truths may be deduced, but it is deduced from none ; 
and the constitution of our power of perception deter- 
6 



62 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

mines us to hold the existence of what we distinctly 
perceive as a first principle, from which other truths 
may be deduced, but it is deduced from none. 

What has been said of the irresistible and immediate 
belief of the existence of objects distinctly perceived, I 
mean only to affirm with regard to persons so far ad- 
vanced in understanding as to distinguish objects of 
mere imagination from things ivhich have a real exist- 
ence. Every man knows that he may have a notion of 
Don Quixote or of Gargantua, without any belief that 
such persons ever existed; and that of Julius Caesar 
and of Oliver Cromwell he has not only a notion, 
but a belief that they did really exist. But whether 
children, from the time that they begin to use their 
senses, make a distinction between things which are 
only conceived or imagined, and things which really 
exist, may be doubted. Until we are able to make 
this distinction, we cannot properly be said to believe 
or to disbelieve the existence of any thing. The belief 
of the existence of any thing seems to suppose a notion 
of existence; a notion too abstract, perhaps, to enter 
into the mind of an infant. I speak of the power of 
perception in those that are adult, and of a sound 
mind, who believe that there are some things which do 
really exist ; and that there are many things conceived 
by themselves, and by others, which have no existence. 
That such persons do invariably ascribe existence to 
every thing which they distinctly perceive, without 
seeking reasons or arguments for doing so, is perfectly 
evident from the whole tenor of human life. 

III. Hoiu we are able to perceive by Means of the 
Senses is beyond our Comprehension.] The account I 
have given of our perception of external objects is in- 
tended as a faithful delineation of what every man, 
come to years of understanding, and capable of giving 
attention to what passes in his own mind, may feel in 
himself. In what manner the notion of external objects, 
and the immediate belief of their existence, is produced 
by means of our senses, I am not able to show, and I 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. PLATO. 63 

do not pretend to show. If the power of perceiving 
external objects in certain circumstances be a part of 
the original constitution of the human mind, all at- 
tempts to account for it will be vain: no other account 
can be given of the constitution of things, but the will 
of Him that made them. As we can give no reason 
why matter is extended and inert, why the mind thinks, 
and is conscious of its thoughts, but the will of Him 
who made both, so, I suspect, we can give no other 
reason why, in certain circumstances, we perceive ex- 
ternal objects, and in others do not. 

The Supreme Being intended that we should have 
such knowledge of the material objects that surround 
us as is necessary in order to our supplying the wants 
of nature, and avoiding the dangers to which we are 
constantly exposed; and he has admirably fitted our 
powers of perception to this purpose. If the intelli- 
•gence we have of external objects were to be got by 
reasoning only, the greatest part of men would be des- 
titute of it ; for the greatest part of men hardly ever 
learn to reason ; and in infancy and childhood no man 
can reason : therefore, as this intelligence of the objects 
that surround us, and from which we may receive so 
much benefit or harm, is equally necessary to children 
and to men, to the ignorant and to the learned, God in 
his wisdom conveys it to us in a way that puts all 
upon a level. The information of the senses is as per- 
fect, and gives as full conviction, to the most ignorant 
as to the most learned. 



CHAPTER V. 

THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. 

I. Plato's Theory.] An object placed at a proper 
distance, and in a good light, while the eyes are shut, 
is not perceived at all ; but no sooner do we open our 



64 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

eyes upon it, than we have, as it were by inspiration, a 
certain knowledge of its existence, of its color, figure, 
and distance. This is a fact which every one knows. 
The vulgar are satisfied with knowing the fact, and 
give themselves no trouble about the cause of it; but a 
philosopher is impatient to know how this event is pro- 
duced, to account for it, or assign its cause. 

This avidity to know the causes of things is the par- 
ent of all philosophy, true and false. Men of specu- 
lation place a great part of their happiness in such 
knowledge. Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas, 
has always been a sentiment of human nature. 

Many philosophers, ancient and modern, have em- 
ployed their invention to discover how we are made to 
perceive external objects by our senses : and there ap- 
pears to be a very great uniformity in their sentiments 
in the main, notwithstanding their variations in partic- 
ular points.* 

Plato illustrates our manner of perceiving the objects 
of sense in this manner. He supposes a dark subter- 
raneous cave, in which men lie bound in such a manner 
that they can direct their eyes only to one part of the 
cave: far behind, there is a light, some rays of which 
come over a wall to that part of the cave which is be- 
fore the eyes of our prisoners. A number of persons, 
variously employed, pass between them and the light, 
whose shadows are seen by the prisoners, but not the 
persons themselves. * 

In this manner that philosopher conceived that, by 
our senses, we perceive the shadows of things only, 
and not things themselves. He seems to have bor- 
rowed his notions on this subject from the Pythagore- 

* It is not easy to conceive by what principle the order of the history of 
opinions touching perception, as given by Reid, is determined. It is not 
chronological, and it is not systematic. Of these theories, there is a very 
able survey, by M. Royer-Collard, among the fragments of his lectures in 
the third volume of Jouffroy's (Euvres de Reid. That distinguished phi- 
losopher has, however, placed too great a reliance upon the accuracy of 
Reid.— H. 

Reid's historico-critical account of the theories of perception is materi- 
ally abridged in this edition, and the order in one or two cases is changed, 
for the reason intimated above. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. PLATO. 



65 



ans, and they very probably from Pythagoras himself. 
If we make allowance for Plato's allegorical genius, his 
sentiments on this subject correspond very well with 
those of his scholar Aristotle, and of the Peripatetics. 
The shadows of Plato may very well represent the spe- 
cies and phantasms of the Peripatetic school, and the 
ideas and impressions of modern philosophers.* 

* This interpretation of the meaning of Plato's comparison of the cave 
exhibits a curious mistake, in which Reid is followed by Mr. Stewart and 
many others, and which, it is remarkable, has never yet been detected. In 
the similitude in question (which will be found in the seventh book of the 
Republic), Plato is supposed to intend an illustration of the mode in which 
the shadows or vicarious images of external things are admitted into the 
mind, — to typify, in short, an hypothesis of sensitive perception. On this 
supposition, the identity of the Platonic, Pythagorean, and Peripatetic the- 
ories of this process is inferred. Nothing can, however, be more ground- 
less than the supposition ; nothing more erroneous than the inference. By 
his cave, images, and shadows, Plato meant simply to illustrate the grand 
principle of his philosophy, that the sensible or ectypal world (phenomenal, 
transitory, yiyvo/xevov, ov koi fifj ov) stands to the noetic or archetypal (sub- 
stantial, permanent, ovtws ov) in the same relation of comparative unreal- 
ity in which the shadows of the images of sensible existences themselves 
stand to the things of which they are the dim and distinct adumbrations. 
And as the comparison is misunderstood, so nothing can be conceived 
more adverse to the doctrine of Plato than the theory it is supposed to elu- 
cidate. It is here sufficient to state, that the ei'SwAa, the Xdyot yvcoartKoi, 
the forms representative of external things, and corresponding to the spe- 
cies sensiles expressa of the schoolmen, were not held by the Platonists to be 
derived from without. Prior to the act of perception, they have a latent but 
real existence in the soul ; and, by the impassive energy of the mind itself, 
are elicited into consciousness, on occasion of the impression (Kivnais, 
7rados, e/j.(f)ao-is) made on the external organ, and of the vital form (£o>ti- 
kov elbos), in consequence thereof, sublimated in the animal life. 

I cannot now do more than indicate the contrast of this doctrine to the 
Peripatetic (I do not say, Aristotelian) theory, and its approximation to the 
Cartesian and Leibnitzian hypotheses ; which, however, both attempt to ex- 
plain what the Platonic did not, — how the mind (ex hypothesi, above all 
physical influence) is determined, on the presence of the unknown reality 
within the sphere of sense, to call into consciousness the representation 
through which that reality is made known to us. I may add, that not 
merely the Platonists, but some of the older Peripatetics, held that the soul 
virtually contained within itself representative forms, which were only ex- 
cited by the external reality; as Theophrastus and Themistius, to say 
nothing of the Platonizing Porphyry, fiimplicius, and Ammonius Hermias; 
and the same opinion, adopted probably from the latter by his pupil, the 
Arabian Adelandus, subsequently became even the common doctrine of 
the Moorish Aristotelians. 

I shall afterwards have occasion to notice that Bacon has also wrested 
Plato's similitude of the cave from its genuine signification. — H. 

On the subject of Plato's doctrines generally, and especially in respect to 

6* 



66 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

Two thousand years after Plato, Mr. Locke, who 
studied the operations of the human mind so much, 
and with so great success, represents our manner of 
perceiving external objects by a similitude very much 
resembling that of the cave. « Methinks," says he, 
"the understanding is not much unlike a closet wholly 
shut from light, with only some little opening left to 
let in external visible resemblances or ideas of things 
without. Would the pictures coming into such a dark 
room but stay there, and lie so orderly as to be found 
upon occasion, it would very much resemble the under- 
standing of a man, in reference to all objects of sight, 
and the ideas of them." 

Plato's subterranean cave, and Mr. Locke's dark 
closet, may be applied with ease to all the systems of 
perception that have been invented : for they all sup- 
pose that we perceive not external objects immediately, 
and that the immediate objects of perception are only 
certain shadows of the external objects. Those shad- 
ows or images, which we immediately perceive, were 
by the ancients called species, forms, phantasms. Since 
the time of Descartes, they have commonly been called 
ideas, and by Mr. Hume impressions. But all philoso- 
phers, from Plato to Mr. Hume, agree in this, that we 
do not perceive external objects immediately, and that 
the immediate object of perception must be some image 
present to the mind. So far, there appears a unanimity 
rarely to be found among philosophers on such ab- 
struse points. 

II. Theory of Aristotle and the Peripatetics.] Aris- 
totle taught, that all the objects of our thought enter at 
first by the senses ; and, since the sense cannot receive 
external material objects themselves, it receives their 
species ; that is, their images or form, without the mat- 
ter, as wax receives the fojrm of the seal, without any 
of the matter of it. These images or forms, impressed 



sensible perception, and the similitude of the cave, compare Van Heusde, 
Jnitia Philosophies Platonicce. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. PERIPATETICS. G7 

upon the senses, are called sensible species, and are the 
objects only of the sensitive part of the mind. But, by 
various internal powers, they are retained, refined, and 
spiritualized, so as to become objects of memory and 
imagination, and, at last, of pure intellection. When 
they are objects of memory and of imagination, they 
get the name of phantasms. When, by further refine- 
ment, and being stripped of their particularities, they 
become objects of science, they are called intelligible 
species. So that every immediate object, whether of 
sense, of memory, of imagination, or of reasoning, must 
be some phantasm or species in the mind itself.* 

* This is a tolerable account of the doctrine vulgarly attributed to Aris- 
totle. — H. 

It is a common error to refer to Aristotle himself the refinements and 
subtil ties introduced into his system by his followers. For a full and au- 
thentic view of the psychology of Aristotle, see the French translations of 
De Anima and of Parva Naiuralia, with copious prefaces and notes, by J. 
Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire. The translator gives the following summary 
of Aristotle's doctrine respecting sensation and perception : — 

"Aristotle considers each of the senses, in the following order, — sight, 
hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Omitting all details, we shall limit our- 
selves here to giving a general idea of his theory of sensibility. 

" Sensibility, according to Aristotle, is a simple power, — a faculty which 
can always act, though it does not always act. Sensation is not, there- 
fore, merely an alteration, as many have said: it is an act which completes 
the being who experiences it ; in a particular act of sensation, he develops 
a faculty that is in him, he realizes what he can do. Thus, in sensation, a 
being does not suffer ; he acts. Moreover, as in sensation there is always 
and necessarily an object felt, it must be admitted that the sensible being 
is in power very nearly as in reality the being felt. Before feeling, it is 
unlike the being which it feels ; after having felt, it is, in some sense, like 
it. Sensibility is, therefore, that which receives the form of sensible objects, 
but not the matter ; like wax which receives the impression of the ring, but 
not the iron or gold of which the ring is made. The sensibility does not 
become, strictly speaking, each of the objects which act upon it ; but it be- 
comes something analogous ; and this something can be comprehended by 
the reason alone; that is to say, it is not a material phenomenon. The 
object is not truly sensible as long as it is not felt ; sensibility, on its side, 
is a mere power as long as it feels not. The act of the object felt and the 
act of the sensibility are therefore blended together, and indissoluble. 
Hence a certain relation, a kind of harmony, is necessary between the sense 
and the object. A sensation, if too violent, is not perceived. Sensibility 
is, to speak properly, a mean ; on this side or beyond a certain point, it no 
longer acts. 

" But man has not only the faculty of feeling ; he also has the faculty of 
feeling that he feels. He feels that he sees; he feels that he hears. Is it 
by the sight that he feels that he sees, or is it by some other sense 7 It is 
by the sight ; or, to speak more correctly, the perceptions of sight, like 



68 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

Aristotle seems to have thought that the soul con- 
sists of two parts, or, rather, that we have two souls, 
the animal and the rational; or, as he calls them, the 
soul and the intellect* To the first belong the senses, 



those of all the other senses, meet in a centre, in a single point, which 
serves as- a common limit to them all, and which compares and measures 
them in an instant indivisible as is this point itself, indivisible as is the 
principle which perceives and feels. 

" Such is Aristotle's theory of sensibility. Not the least trace is found 
there, as all will see, of those sensible species, of those images, of those rejrre- 
sentative images, as Reid calls them, without which, it has often been re- 
peated, Aristotle could not explain perception. I do not deny that before 
him some philosophers, Democritus and others, had supposed the inter- 
vention of images proceeding from objects to the mind, by means of which 
the mind is enabled to comprehend the objects. Neither do I deny that, 
after Aristotle, his commentators, and the schoolmen especially, have at- 
tributed to him, in trying to comprehend him, the views which Reid has 
attacked and overthrown. But I think myself authorized to affirm that 
these views were never held by Aristotle himself. He employed a meta- 
phor to explain perception, and the use of metaphor (which he had for- 
mally proscribed and disowned in philosophy) has been unlucky in this 
case, as it has caused his real thought to be misunderstood. But he went 
no farther. As a perfectly faithful observer, he has stated the facts ; he 
has invented nothing. Before the great mystery of perception he paused, 
with a prudence not exceeded by that of the Scotch school. Reid contents 
himself, after having refuted all previous theories, with protesting against 
them without pretending to substitute another more complete in their 
place, declaring that perception, with all its ascertained characteristics, is a 
fact irreducible to any other. With less profoundness and delicacy of 
analysis, Aristotle has said precisely the same thing: — 'We experience in 
sensation a modification which reason alone can apprehend.' Aristotle, 
it is true, has gone farther than Reid, by adding, that, in perception, the 
being which perceives becomes in some manner conformed to the being 
perceived. This remark is perhaps more ingenious than solid ; but it is 
not the fault of Aristotle, if afterwards consequences were drawn from his 
theories which he never attributed to them, and which even contradict 
them. He no more held the doctrine of idea-images, of representative ideas, 
than he admitted that confusion of sensation and thought which has so often 
been ascribed to him, and which he refutes again and again in his treatise 
On the Soul. Reid has certainly rendered a real service to science by dis- 
embarrassing it of an hypothesis the source of so many errors, and enter- 
tained by some of the greatest thinkers, — by Descartes among the rest. 
But this is an error into which Aristotle never fell ; his theories do not 
contain it: error may be there, but not that of which he is accused by 
Reid." Traitt de VAme, Preface, p. xxii. The same topics are treated 
more fully in the editoi-'s Plan Giniral du Traite de VAme, p. 35, et seg.; 
and in the treatise itself, Liv. H. Chap. V.-XIL, and Liv. HI. Chap. I., 
H.— Ed. 

* This is not correct. Instead of two, the animal and rational, Aristotle 
gave to the soul three generic functions, the vegetable, the animal or sensual, 
and the rational ; but whether he supposes these to constitute three concen- 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. PERIPATETICS. 69 

memory, and imagination; to the last, judgment, opin- 
ion, belief, and reasoning. The first we have in com- 
mon with brute animals ; the last is peculiar to man. 
The animal soul he held to be a certain form of the 
body, which is inseparable from it, and perishes at 
death. To this soul the senses belong : and he defines 
a sense to be that which is capable of receiving the 
sensible forms, or species of objects, without any of the 
matter of them, as wax receives the form of the seal 
without any of the matter of it. The forms of sound, 
of color, of taste, and of other sensible qualities, are in 
like manner received by the senses. 

It seems to be a necessary consequence of Aristotle's 
doctrine, that bodies are constantly sending forth, in all 
directions, as many different kinds of forms without 
matter as they have different sensible qualities ; for the 
forms of color must enter by the eye, the forms of 
sound by the ear, and so of the other senses. This 
accordingly was maintained by the followers of Aris- 
totle, though not, as far as I know, expressly mentioned 
by himself. They disputed concerning the nature of 
those forms, or species, whether they were real beings 
or nonentities ; and some held them to be of an inter- 
mediate nature between the two.* The whole doctrine 
of the Peripatetics and schoolmen concerning forms, 
substantial and accidental, and concerning the trans- 
mission of sensible species from objects of sense to the 
mind, if it be at. all intelligible, is so far above my com- 



trie potences, three separate parts, or three distinct souls, has divided his 
disciples. He also defines the soul in general, and not, as Reid supposes, 
the mere " animal soul," to be the form or eVreAe^eta of the body. (De 
Anima, Lib. II. cap. 2.) Intellect (vovs) he, however, thought was inor- 
ganic; but there is some ground for believing that he did not view this as 
personal, but harboured an opinion which, under various modifications, 
many of his followers also held, that the active intellect was common to all 
men, immortal and divine. — H. 

* The question in the schools, among those who admitted species, was 
not whether species, in general, were real beings or nonentities, (which would 
have been, did they exist or not), but whether sensible, species were mate- 
rial, immaterial, or of a nature between body and spirit, — a problem, it 
must be allowed, sufficiently futile, but not, like the other, self-contradic- 
tory. — H. 



70 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

prehension, that I should perhaps do it injustice by 
entering into it more minutely. Malebranche, in his 
Recherche' de la Verite, has employed a chapter to show 
that material objects do not send forth sensible species 
of their several sensible qualities. 

III. Descartes' 's Theory.] The great revolution which 
Descartes produced in philosophy was the effect of a 
superiority of genius, aided by the circumstances of 
the times.* Men had, for more than a thousand years, 
looked up to Aristotle as an oracle in philosophy. His 
authority was the test of truth. The small remains of 
the Platonic system were confined to a few mystics, 
whose principles and manner of life drew little atten- 
tion. The feeble attempts of Ramus, and of some 
others, to make improvements in the system, had little 
effect. The Peripatetic doctrines were so interwoven 
with the whole system of scholastic theology, that to 
dissent from Aristotle was to alarm the Church. The 
most useful and intelligible parts, even of Aristotle's 
writings, were neglected, and philosophy was become 
an art of speaking learnedly, and disputing subtilely, 
without producing any invention of use in human life. 
It was fruitful of words, but barren of works, and 
admirably contrived for drawing a veil over human 
ignorance, and putting a stop to the progress of knowl- 
edge, by filling men with a conceit that they knew 
every thing. It was very fruitful, also, in controversies ; 
but for the most part they were controversies about 
words, or about things of no moment, or things above 
the reach of the human faculties : and the issue of 
them was what might be expected, that the contend- 
ing parties fought, without gaming or losing an inch 
of ground, till they were weary of the dispute, or their 
attention was called off to some other subject, f 

* Rene Descartes was born at La Haye, in Touraine, March 31, 1596. 
Much of his life was passed in Holland. He died, February 14, 1650, at 
Stockholm, Avhither he had repaired at the invitation of Christina, queen 
of Sweden. — Ed. 

t This is the vulgar opinion in regard to the scholastic philosophy. The 
few are, however, now aware that the human mind, though partially, was 
never more powerfully developed than during the Middle Ages — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. DESCARTES. 71 

Such was the philosophy of the schools of Europe, 
during many ages of darkness and barbarism that suc- 
ceeded the decline of the Roman empire ; so that there 
was great need of a reformation in philosophy as well 
as in religion. The light began to dawn at last;. a 
spirit of inquiry sprang up, and men got the courage 
to doubt of the dogmas of Aristotle, as well as of the 
decrees of popes. The most important step in the 
reformation of religion was to destroy the claim of in- 
fallibility, which hindered men from using their judg- 
ment in matters of religion : and the most important 
step in the reformation of philosophy was to destroy 
the authority of which Aristotle had so long had peace- 
able possession. The last had been attempted by Lord 
Bacon and others, with no less zeal than the first by 
Luther and Calvin. 

Descartes knew well the defects of the prevailing 
system, which had begun to lose its authority. His 
genius enabled him, and his spirit prompted him, to at- 
tempt, a new one. He had applied himself much to the 
mathematical sciences, and had made considerable im- 
provement in them. He wished to introduce" that per- 
spicuity and evidence into other branches of philosophy 
which he found in them. Being sensible how apt we 
are to be led astray by prejudices of education, he 
thought the only way to avoid error was, to resolve to 
doubt of every thing, — to hold every thing to be uncer- 
tain, even those things which he had been taught to 
hold as most certain, until he had such clear and cogent 
evidence as compelled his assent. 

In this state of universal doubt, that which first ap- 
peared to him to be clear and certain was his own 
existence. Of this he was certain, because he was 
conscious that he thought, that he reasoned, and that 
he doubted. He used this argument, therefore, to prove 
his own existence, — Cogito, ergo sum. This he con- 
ceived to be the first of all truths, the foundation-stone 
upon which the whole fabric of human knowledge is 
built, and on which it must rest. And as Archimedes 
thought that, if he had one fixed point to rest his 



72 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

engines upon, he could move the earth ; so Descartes, 
charmed with the discovery of one certain principle, by 
which he emerged from the state of universal doubt, 
believed that this principle alone would be a sufficient 
foundation on which he might build the whole system 
of science. He seems, therefore, to have taken no great 
trouble to examine whether there might not be other 
first principles, which, on account of their own light 
and evidence, ought to be admitted by every man of 
sound judgment. The love of simplicity, so natural 
to the mind of man, led him to apply the whole force 
of his mind to raise the fabric of knowledge upon 
this one principle, rather than seek a broader foun- 
dation. 

Accordingly, he does not admit the evidence of sense 
to be a first principle, as he does that of consciousness. 
The arguments of the ancient skeptics here occurred 
to him ; — that our senses often deceive us, and therefore 
ought never to be trusted on their own authority ; that, 
in sleep, we often seem to see and hear things which 
we are convinced to have had no existence. But that 
which chiefly led Descartes to think that he ought not 
to trust to his senses, without proof of their veracity, 
was, that he took it for granted, as all philosophers had 
done before him, that he did not perceive external ob- 
jects themselves, but certain images of them in his own 
mind, called ideas. He was certain, by consciousness, 
that he had the ideas of sun and moon, earth and sea ; 
but how could he be assured that there really existed 
external objects like to these ideas ? 

Hitherto he was uncertain of every thing but of his 
own existence, and the existence of the operations and 
ideas of his own mind. Some of his disciples, it is 
said, remained at this stage of his system, and got the 
name of Egoists* They could not find evidence in the 
subsequent stages of his progress. But Descartes re- 
solved not to stop here ; he endeavoured to prove, by a 



* Sir W. Hamilton can find no satisfactory evidence of the existence of 
this sect. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. DESCARTES. 73 

new argument, drawn from his idea of a Deity, the ex- 
istence of an infinitely perfect Being, who made him 
and all his faculties. From the perfection of this 
Being, he inferred that he could be no deceiver ; and 
therefore concluded, that his senses, and the other facul- 
ties he found in himself, are not fallacious, but may be 
trusted, when a proper use is made of them. 

The merit of Descartes cannot be easily conceived 
by those who have not some notion of the Peripatetic 
system in which he was educated. To throw off the 
prejudices of education, and to create a system of 
nature totally different from that which had subdued 
the understanding of mankind, and kept it in subjec- 
tion for so many centuries, required an uncommon force 
of mind. 

In the world of Descartes we meet with two kinds 
of beings only, — to wit, body and mind; the first, the 
object of our senses, the other, of consciousness; both 
of them things of which we have a distinct apprehen- 
sion, if the human mind be capable of distinct appre- 
hension at all. To the first, no qualities are ascribed 
but extension, figure, and motion ; to the last, nothing 
but thought, and its various modifications, of which 
we are conscious.* He could observe no common attri- 
bute, no resembling feature, in the attributes of body 
and mind, and therefore concluded them to be distinct 
substances, and totally of a different nature ; and that 
body, from its very nature, is inanimate and inert, in- 
capable of any kind of thought or sensation, or of pro- 
ducing any change or alteration in itself. 

Descartes must be allowed the honor of being the 
first who drew a distinct line between the material and 
intellectual ivorld, which, in all the old systems, were so 
blended together, that it was impossible to say where 
the one ends and the other begins.f How much this 
distinction has contributed to the improvements of 

* In the Cartesian language, the term thought included all of which we 
arc conscious. — H. 

t This assertion is true in general; but some individual exceptions 
might be taken. — H. 

7 



74 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

modern times, in the philosophy both of body and of 
mind, it is not easy to say. 

One obvious consequence of this distinction was, 
that accurate reflection on the operations of our own 
mind is the only way to make any progress in the knowl- 
edge of it. Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume 
were taught this lesson by Descartes ; and to it we owe 
their most valuable discoveries in this branch of philos- 
ophy. The analogical way of reasoning concerning 
the powers of the mind from the properties of body, 
which is the source of almost all the errors on this sub- 
ject, and which is so natural to the bulk of mankind, 
was as contrary to the principles of Descartes as it was 
agreeable to the principles of the old philosophy. We 
may, therefore, truly say, that, in that part of philosophy 
which relates to the mind, Descartes laid the founda- 
tion, and put us into that track which all wise men 
now acknowledge to be the only one in which we can 
expect success. 

To return to Descartes's notions of the manner of 
our perceiving external objects, from which a concern 
to do justice to the merits of that great reformer in 
philosophy has led me to digress, — he took it for 
granted, as the old philosophers had done, that what 
we immediately perceive must be either in the mind 
itself, or in the brain, to which the mind is immediately 
present. The impressions made upon our organs, 
nerves, and brain could be nothing, according to his 
philosophy, but various modifications of extension, 
figure, and motion. There could be nothing in the 
brain like sound or color, taste or smell, heat or cold ; 
these are sensations in the mind, which, by the laws of 
the union of soul and body, are raised on occasion of 
certain traces in the brain ; and although he gives the 
name of ideas to those traces in the brain, he does not 
think it necessary that they should be perfectly like to 
the things which they represent, any more than that 
words or signs should resemble the things they signify. 
But, says he, that we may follow the received opinion 
as far as is possible, we may allow a slight resemblance. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. DESCARTES. 75 

Thus we know that a print in a book may represent 
houses, temples, and groves ; and so far is it from being 
necessary that the print should be perfectly like the 
thing it represents, that its perfection often requires the 
contrary. For a circle must often be represented by an 
ellipse, a square by a rhombus, and so of other things.* 

It is to be observed, that Descartes rejected a part 
only of the ancient theory, concerning the perception of 
external objects by the senses, and that he adopted the 
other part. That theory may be divided into two parts : 
the first, that images, species, or forms of external ob- 
jects come from the object, and enter by the avenues of 
the senses to the mind ; the second part is, that the ex- 
ternal object itself is not perceived, but only the species 
or image of it in the mind. The first part Descartes 
and his followers rejected, and refuted by solid argu- 
ments ; but the second part, neither he nor his follow- 
ers have thought of calling in question, being per- 
suaded that it is only a representative image, in the 
mind, of the external object that we perceive, and not 
the object itself. And this image, which the Peripa- 
tetics called a species, he calls an idea, changing the 
name only, while he admits the thing. 

It seems strange, that the great pains which the phi- 
losopher took to throw off the prejudices of education, 



* But he it observed that Descartes did not allow, far less hold, that the 
mind had any cognizance of these organic motions, — of these material 
ideas. They were merely the antecedents, established by the law of union 
of soul and body, of the mental idea; which mental idea was nothing 
more than a modification of the mind itself. ,Reid, I may observe in gen- 
eral, does not distinguish, as it especially behooved him to do, between what 
were held by philosophers to be the proximate causes of our mental repre- 
sentations, and these representations themselves as the objects of cognition ; 
i. e. between what are known in the schools as the species impresses, and 
the species expressce. The former, to which the name of species, image, 
idea, was often given, in common with the latter, was held on all hands to 
be unknown to consciousness, and generally supposed to be merely certain 
occult motions in the organism. The latter, the result determined by the 
former, is the mental representation, and the immediate or proper object in 
perception. Great confusion, to those who do not bear this distinction in 
mind, is, however, the consequence of the verbal ambiguity ; and Rcid's 
misrepresentations of the doctrine of the philosophers is, in a great meas- 
ure, to be traced to this source. — H. 



76 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

to dismiss all his former opinions, and to assent to 
nothing till he found evidence that compelled his as- 
sent, should not have led him to doubt this opinion 
of the ancient philosophy. It is evidently a philosoph- 
ical opinion ; for the vulgar undoubtedly believe that it 
is the external object which we immediately perceive, 
and not a representative image of it only. ' It is for 
this reason that they look upon it as a perfect lunacy 
to call in question the existence of external objects. 

It seems to be admitted as a first principle by the 
learned and the unlearned, that what is really perceived 
must exist, and that to perceive what does not exist is 
impossible. So far the unlearned man and the philos- 
opher agree. The unlearned man says, I perceive the 
external object, and I perceive it to exist. Nothing 
can be more absurd than to doubt it. The Peripatetic 
says, What I perceive is the very identical form of the 
object, which came immediately from the object, and 
makes an impression upon my mind, as a seal does 
upon wax ; and therefore I can have no doubt of the 
existence of an object whose form I perceive. But 
what says the Cartesian ? . I perceive not, says he, the 
external object itself. So far he agrees with the Peri- 
patetic, and differs from the unlearned man. But I 
perceive an image, or form, or idea, in my own mind, 
or in my brain. I am certain of the existence of the 
idea, because I immediately perceive it. But how this 
idea is formed, or what it represents, is not self-evident; 
and therefore I must find arguments by which, from 
the existence of the idea which I perceive, I can infer 
the existence of an external object which it represents. 

As I take this to be a just view of the principles 
of the unlearned man, of the Peripatetic, and of the 
Cartesian, so I think they all reason consequentially 
from their several principles. The Cartesian has strong 
grounds to doubt of the existence of external objects, 
the Peripatetic very little ground of doubt, and the 
unlearned man none at all ; and the difference of their 
situation arises from this, — that the unlearned man 
has no hypothesis, the Peripatetic leans upon an hy- 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. MALEBRANCHE. 77 

pothesis, and the Cartesian upon one half of that 
hypothesis.* 

IV. Malebranche' 's Tlieory.] Malebranche, with a 
very penetrating genius, entered into a more minute 
examination of the powers of the human mind than 
any one before him.f He had the advantage of the 
discoveries made by Descartes, whom he followed 
without slavish attachment. 

He lays it down as a principle admitted by all phi- 
losophers, and which could not be called in question, 
that we do not perceive external objects immediately, 
but by means of images or ideas of them present to the 
mind. " I suppose," says he, " that every one will 
grant that we perceive not the objects that are without 
us immediately, and of themselves.^ We see the sun, 
the stars, and an infinity of objects without us ; and it 
is not at all likely that the soul sallies out of the body, 
and, as it were, takes a walk through the heavens to 
contemplate all those objects. She sees them not, 
therefore, by themselves ; and the immediate object of 
the mind, when it sees the sun, for example, is not the 
sun, but something which is intimately united to the 
soul ; and it is that which I call an idea : so that by 
the word idea I understand nothing else here but that 
which is the immediate object, or nearest to the mind, 
when we perceive any object. It ought to be carefully 
observed, that, in order to the mind's perceiving any 

* M. Gamier has published the best edition of Descartes's metaphysical 
■writings, (Envres Philosophiques de Descartes (4 vols., 8vo, Paris, 1835). 
For the best account of Cartesianism, and its influence on modern thought, 
see Histoire et Critique de la Revolution Cartesienne, par M. Francisque 
Bouillier. See, also, Stewart's Dissertation, Part I. Chap. II. Sect. II. ; 
Hallam's Literature of Europe, from 1600 to 1650, Chap. III. Sect. III. ; 
Damiron, Essai sur V Histoire de la Philosophie en France, au XVIIe Si&cle, 
Liv. II. 

We have met with but two English translations from Descartes ; his 
Discourse of Method (16mo, London, 1649), published anonymously, and 
his Six Metaphysical Meditations, bv William Molvneux (16mo, London, 
1680). — Ed. 

t Nicholas Malebranche, a priest of the Oratory, was born at Paris, Au- 
gust 6, 1638, and died in the same city, October 13, 1715.— Ed. 

I Rather in or by themselves {par eux-mt mes) . — H. 
ry # 



78 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

object, it is absolutely necessary that the idea of that 
object be actually present to it. Of this it is not pos- 
sible to doubt. The things which the soul perceives 
are of two kinds. They are either in the soul, or they 
are without the soul : those that are in the soul are its 
own thoughts, that is to say, all its different modifica- 
tions. The soul has no need of ideas for perceiving 
these things. But with regard to things without the 
soul, we cannot perceive them but by means of ideas."* 

Having laid this foundation, as a principle which 
was common to all philosophers, and which admitted 
of no doubt, he proceeds to enumerate all the possible 
ways by which the ideas of sensible objects may be 
presented to the mind : — Either, first, they come from 
the bodies which we perceive ; or, secondly, the soul 
has the power of producing them in itself; or, thirdly, 
they are produced by the Deity, either in our creation, 
or occasionally, as there is use for them ; or, fourthly, 
the soul has in itself virtually and eminently, as the 
schools speak, all the perfections which it perceives in 
bodies; or, fifthly, the soul is united with a being pos- 
sessed of all perfection, who has in himself the ideas of 
all created things. 

This he takes to be a complete enumeration of all 
the possible ways in which the ideas of external objects 
may be presented to our minds. He employs a whole 
chapter upon each ; refuting the first four, and confirm- 
ing the last by various arguments. The Deity, being 
always present to our minds in a more intimate man- 
ner than any other being, may, upon occasion of the 
impressions made on our bodies, discover to us, as far 
as he thinks proper, and according to fixed laws, his 
own ideas of the object; and thus "we see all things 
in God," or in the Divine ideas.f 



* De la Recherche de la Veritd, Liv. III. Partie II. Chap. I. 

t It should have been noticed that the Malebranchian philosophy is fun- 
damentally Cartesian, and that, after De la Forge and Geulinx, the doc- 
trine of Divine Assistance, implicitly maintained by Descartes, was most 
ably developed by Malebranche, to whom it owes, indeed, a principal share 
of its celebrity. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. MALEBRANCHE. 79 

However visionary this system may appear on a su- 
perficial view, yet when we consider that he agreed 
with the whole tribe of philosophers in conceiving ideas 
to be the immediate objects of perception, and that he 
found insuperable difficulties, and even absurdities, in 
every other hypothesis concerning them, it will not ap- 
pear so wonderful that a man of very great genius 
should fall into this ; and probably it pleased so devout 
a man the more, that it sets in the most striking light 
our dependence upon God, and his continual presence 
with us. 

He distinguished, more accurately than any philoso- 
pher had done before, the objects which we perceive 
from the sensations in our own minds, which, by the 
laws of nature, always accompany the perception of 
the object. As in many things, so particularly in this, 
he has great merit : for this, I apprehend, is a key that 
opens the way to a right understanding both of our 
external senses and of other powers of the mind. The 
vulgar confound sensation with other powers of the 
mind, and with their objects, because the purposes of 
life do not make a distinction necessary. The con- 
founding of these in common language has led philoso- 
phers, in one period, to make those things external 
which really are sensations in our own minds ; and, in 
another period, running, as is usual, into the contrary 
extreme, to make almost every thing to be a sensation 
or feeling in our minds. 

It is obvious, that the system of Malebranche leaves 
no evidence of the existence of a material world from 
what we perceive by our senses ; for the Divine ideas, 
which are the objects immediately perceived, were the 
same before the world was created. Malebranche was 
too acute not to discern this cojisequence of his system, 
and too candid not to acknowledge it : he fairly owns 
it, and endeavours to make advantage of it, resting the 
complete evidence, we have of the existence of matter 
upon the authority of revelation. He shows, that the 
arguments brought, by Descartes to prove the existence 
of a material world, though as good as any that reason 



80 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

could furnish, are not perfectly conclusive ; and though 
he acknowledges, with Descartes, that we feel a strong 
propensity to believe the existence of a material world, 
yet he thinks this is not sufficient, and that to yield to 
such propensities without evidence is to expose our- 
selves to perpetual delusion. He thinks, therefore, that 
the only convincing evidence we have of the existence 
of the material world is, that we are assured by revela- 
tion that " God created the heavens and the earth," 
and that " the Word was made flesh." He is sensible 
of the ridicule to which so strange an opinion may ex- 
pose him among those who are guided by prejudice; 
but, for the sake of truth, he is willing to bear it. • But 
no author, not even Bishop Berkeley, has shown more 
clearly, that, either upon his own system, or upon the 
common principles of philosophers with regard to ideas, 
we have no evidence left, either from reason or from 
our senses, of the existence of a material world. It is 
no more than justice to Father Malebranche to ac- 
knowledge, that Bishop Berkeley's arguments are to 
be found in him in their whole force.* 

Malebranche's system was adopted by many devout 
people in France, of both sexes ; but it seems to have 
had no great currency in other countries. Mr. Locke 
wrote a small tract against it, which is found among 
his posthumous works ; but whether it was written in 
haste, or after the vigor of his understanding was im- 
paired by age, there is less of strength and solidity in 
it than in most of his writings.! The most formidable 
antagonist Malebranche met with was in his own 
country, — Antony Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, 



* Once, and only once, these eminent philosophers had the pleasure of 
an interview. " The conversation," we are told, " turned on the non-exist- 
ence of matter. Malebranche, who had an inflammation in his lungs, and 
whom Berkeley found preparing a medicine in his cell, and cooking it in a 
small pipkin, exerted his voice so violently in the heat of their dispute, 
that he increased his disorder, which carried him off in a few days after." 
Biog. Brit., Art. Berkeley. — Ed. 

t In answer to Locke's Examination of P. Malebranche's Opinions, Leib- 
nitz wrote Remarques, making No. LXVI. of Erdmann's edition of his 
Opera Philosophica. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. ARNAULD. 81 

and one of the acntest writers the Jansenists have to 
boast of, though that sect has produced many. Those 
who choose to see this system attacked on the one 
hand, and defended on the other, with subtilty of argu- 
ment and elegance of expression, and on the part of 
Arnauld with much wit and humor, may find satisfac- 
tion by reading Malebranche's Inquiry after Truth, 
Arnauld's book of True and False Ideas, Malebranche's 
Defence, and some subsequent replies and defences. 
In controversies of this kind, the assailant commonly 
has the advantage, if the parties are not unequally 
matched ; for it is easier to overturn all the theories of 
philosophers upon this subject, than to defend any one 
of them. Mr. Bayle makes a very just remark upon 
this controversy, that the arguments of Mr. Arnauld 
against the system of Malebranche were often unan- 
swerable, but they were capable of being retorted 
against his own system ; and his ingenious antagonist 
knew well how to use this defence.* 

V. Arnauld's Theory.] The controversy between 
Malebranche and Arnauld f necessarily led them to 
consider what kind of things ideas are, a point upon 

* Independently of his principal hypothesis altogether, the works of 
Malebranche deserve the most attentive study, both on account of the 
many admirable thoughts and observations with which they abound, and 
because they are among the few consummate models of philosophical elo- 
quence. — ft. 

Charpentier has published in his BibliotMque Philosophique a good edi- 
tion of Malebranche's metaphysical writings, — (Euvres, edition collationee 
sur les meilleurs textes, comprenant: les Entretiens M(taphijsiques, les Me- 
ditations, le Traite de V Amour de Dieu, VEntretien d'un Philosophe Chretien et 
d'un Philosophe Chinois, la Recherche de la V6rit6, avcc notes et introduction 
par J. Simon (2 vols., 12mo). For further information respecting Male- 
branche and his philosophy, see Le Cartrsianisme, ou la Veritable Renova- 
tion dts Sciences, par M. Bordas Demoulin ; Dictionnaire des Sciences Philo- 
sophiques, Art. Malebranche ; Damiron, Dela Philosophic en France, auJCVIIe 
Sierle, Liv. VI.; Stewart's Dissertation, Part I. Chap. II. Sect. II. 

Malebranche's Search after Truth was translated into English by Richard 
Sault (2 vols., 12mo, London, 1694); and his Treatise of Morality, by 
James Shipton (12mo, London, 1699). Sault translated also his Treatise 
of Nature and Grace. — Ed. 

t Antoine Arnauld, doctor of the Sorbonne, whom the Port-P»oyalist3 
call "le grand," was born at Paris, February 8, 1612, and died at Brussels, 
August 8, 1694.— Ed. 



82 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

which other philosophers had very generally been silent. 
Both of them professed the doctrine universally re- 
ceived, that we perceive not material things immedi- 
ately, that it is their ideas that are the immediate ob- 
jects of our thought, and that it is in the idea of every 
thing that we perceive its properties. 

It is necessary to premise, that both these authors 
use the word perception, as Descartes had done before 
them, to signify every operation of the understanding.* 
" To think, to know, to perceive, are the same thing," 
says Mr. Arnauld, Chap. V. Def. 2. It is likewise to 
be observed, that the various operations of the mind 
are by both called modifications of the mind. Perhaps 
they were led into this phrase by the Cartesian doc- 
trine, that the essence of the mind consists in thinking, 
as that of body consists in extension. I apprehend, 
therefore, that when they make sensation, perception, 
memory, and imagination to be various modifications 
of the mind, they mean no more than that these are 
things which can only exist in the mind as their sub- 
ject. We express the same thing by calling them 
various modes of thinking, or various operations of the 
mind.f 

The things which the mind perceives, says Male- 
branche, are of two kinds. They are either in the 
mind itself, or they are external to it. The things in 
the mind are all its different modifications, its sensa- 
tions, its imaginations, its pure intellections, its pas- 
sions and affections. These are immediately perceived; 
we are conscious of them, and have no need of ideas to 
represent them to us. 

Things external to the mind are either corporeal or 
spiritual. With regard to the last, he thinks it possi- 
ble, that, in. another state, spirits may be an immediate 



* Every apprehensive, or .strictly cognitive, operation of the understand- 
ing. — H. 

t Modes or modifications of mind, in the Cartesian school, mean merely 
what some recent philosophers express by states of mind, and. include both 
the active and passive phenomena of the conscious subject. The terms 
were used by Descartes as well as by his disciples. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. ARNAULD. 83 

object of our understandings, and so be perceived with- 
out ideas ; that there may be such a union of spirits as 
that they may immediately perceive each other, and 
communicate their thoughts mutually, without signs 
and without ideas. But leaving this as a problemati- 
cal point, he holds it to be undeniable, that material 
things cannot be perceived immediately, but only by 
the mediation of ideas. He thought it likewise undeni- 
able, that the idea must be immediately present to the 
mind, that it must touch the soul, as it were, and mod- 
ify its perception of the object. 

From these principles we must necessarily conclude, 
either that the idea is some modification of the human 
mind, or that it must be an idea in the Divine mind, 
which is always intimately present with our minds. 
The matter being brought to this alternative, Male- 
branche considers, first, all the possible ways such a 
modification may be produced in our mind as that we 
call an idea of a material object, taking it for granted, 
always that it must be an object perceived, and some- 
thing different from the act of the mind in perceiving 
it. He finds insuperable objections against every hy- 
pothesis of such ideas being produced in our minds, 
and therefore concludes, that the immediate objects of 
perception are the ideas of the Divine mind. 

Against this system Arnauld wrote his book of True 
and False Ideas. He does not object to the alterna- 
tive mentioned by Malebranche ; but he maintains, 
that ideas are modifications of our minds. And finding 
no other modification of the human mind which can 
be called the idea of an external object, he says it is 
only another word for perception. (Chap. V. Def. 3.) 
" I take the idea of an object, and the perception of an 
object, to be the same thing. I do not say whether 
there may be other things to which the name of idea 
may be given. But it is certain that there are ideas 
taken in this sense, and that these ideas are either 
attributes or modifications of our minds." * 

* Arnauld did not allow that perceptions and ideas are really or numeri- 



84 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

This, I think, indeed, was to attack the system of 
Malebranche upon its weak side, and where, at the 
same time, an attack was least expected. Philosophers 
had been so unanimous in maintaining that we do not 
perceive external objects immediately, but by certain 
representative images of them called ideas, that Male- 
branche might well think his system secure upon that 
quarter, and that the only question to be determined 
was, in what subject those ideas are placed, whether in 
the human or in the Divine mind. 

But, says Arnauld, these ideas are mere chimeras, 
fictions of philosophers ; there are no such beings in 
nature ; and therefore it is to no purpose to inquire 
whether they are in the Divine or in the human mind. 
The only true and real ideas are our perceptions, which 
are acknowledged by all philosophers, and Malebranche 
himself, to be acts or modifications of our own minds. 
He does not say that the fictitious ideas were a fiction 
of Malebranche. He acknowledges that they had been 
very generally maintained by the scholastic philoso- 
phers, and points out, very judiciously, the prejudices 
that had led them into the belief of such ideas. 

Of all the powers of our mind, the external senses 
are thought to be the best understood, and their objects 
are the most familiar. Hence we measure other pow- 
ers by them, and transfer to other powers the language 
which properly belongs to them. The objects of sense 
must be present to the sense, or within its sphere, in 
order to their being perceived. Hence, by analogy, we 
are led to say of every thing when we think of it, that 
it is present to the mind, or in the mind. But this 
presence is metaphorical or analogical only ; and Ar- 
nauld calls it objective presence, to distinguish it from 

tally distinguished, — i. e. as one thing from another thing; not even that 
they are modally distinguished, — i. e. as a thing from its mode. He main- 
tained that they are really identical, and only rationally discriminated as 
viewed in different relations ; the indivisible mental modification being 
called a perception, by reference to the mind or thinking subject, — an idea, 
by reference to the mediate object or thing thotight. Arnauld everywhere 
avows that he denies ideas, only as existences distinct from the act itself of 
perception. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. ARNAULD. 85 

that local presence which is required in objects that are 
perceived by sense. But both being called by the same 
name, they are confounded together, and those things 
that belong only to real or local presence are attributed 
to the metaphorical. We are likewise accustomed to 
see objects by their images in a mirror, or in water ; 
and hence are led, by analogy, to think that objects 
may be presented to the memory or imagination, in 
some similar manner, by images, which philosophers 
have called ideas. 

By such prejudices and analogies, Arnauld conceives, 
men have been led to believe that the objects of mem- 
ory and imagination must be presented to the mind by 
images or ideas ; and the philosophers have been more 
carried away by these prejudices than even the vulgar, 
because the use made of this theory was to explain 
and account for the various operations of the mind, a 
matter in which the vulgar take no concern. He thinks, 
however, that Descartes had got the better of these 
prejudices, and that he uses the word idea as signifying 
the same thing with perception, and is therefore sur- 
prised that a disciple of Descartes, and one who was 
so great an admirer of him as Malebranche, should 
be carried away by them. It is strange, indeed, that 
the two most eminent disciples of Descartes, and his 
contemporaries, should differ so essentially with regard 
to his doctrine concerning ideas. 

I shall not attempt to give the reader an account 
of the continuation of this controversy between those 
two acute philosophers, in the subsequent defences 
and replies, because I have not access to them. After 
much reasoning, and some animosity, each continued 
in his own opinion, and left his antagonist where he 
found him. Malebranche's opinion of our seeing all 
things in God soon died away of itself, and Arnauld's 
notion of ideas seems to have been less regarded than it 
deserved by the philosophers that came after him ; per- 
haps for this reason, among others, that it seemed to 
be in some sort given up by himself, in his attempting 



86 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

to reconcile it to the common doctrine concerning 
ideas.* 

Arnauld has employed the whole of his sixth chapter 
to show that these ways of speaking, common among 
philosophers, — to wit, that we perceive not things im- 
mediately ; that it is their ideas that are the immediate 
objects of our thoughts ; that it is in the idea of every 
thing that we perceive its properties, — are not to be re- 
jected, but are true when rightly understood. He labors 
to reconcile these expressions to his own definition of 
ideas, by observing, that every perception 'and every 
thought is necessarily conscious of itself, and reflects 
upon itself; and that, by this consciousness and reflec- 
tion, it is its own immediate object. Whence he in- 



* The opinion of Arnauld in regard to the nature of ideas was by no 
means overlooked by subsequent philosophers. It is found fully detailed 
in almost every systematic course or compend of philosophy which ap- 
peared for a long time after its first promulgation, and in many of these it 
is the doctrine recommended as the true. Arnauld's was indeed the opin- 
ion which latterly prevailed in the Cartesian school. From this it passed 
into other schools. Leibnitz, like Arnauld, regarded ideas, notions, repre- 
sentations, as mere modifications of the mind, (what by his disciples were 
called material ideas, like the cerebral ideas of Descartes, are out of the 
question,) and no cruder opinion than this has ever subsequently found a 
footing in any of the German systems. 

" I don't know." says Mr Stewart, " of any author who, prior to Dr. 
Reid, has expressed himself on this subject with so much justness and pre- 
cision as Father Buffier, in the following passage of his Treatise on First 
Truths (p. 311): — 'If we confine ourselves to what is intelligible in our 
observations on ideas, we will say, they are nothing but mere modifications 
of the mind as a thinking being. They are called ideas with regard to the 
object represented, and perceptions with regard to the faculty representing. 
It is manifest that our ideas, considered in this sense, are not more distin- 
guished than motion is from the body moved.' " — Elements, Add. to note 
to Part I. Chap. IV. Sect. II. 

In this passage, Buffier only repeats the doctrine of Arnauld, in Ar- 
nauld's own words. 

Dr. Thomas Brown, on the other hand, has endeavoured to show that 
this doctrine (which he identifies with Reid's) had been long the catholic 
opinion, and that Reid, in his attack on the ideal system, only refuted what 
had been already almost universally exploded. In this attempt he is, how- 
ever, singularly unfortunate ; for, with the exception of Crousaz, all the 
examples he adduces to evince the prevalence of Arnauld's doctrine are 
only so many mistakes, so many instances, in fact, which might be alleged 
in confirmation of the very opposite conclusion. See Edinburgh Review, 
Vol. LII. pp. 181 - 196. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LEIBNITZ. 87 

fers, that the idea — that is, the perception — is the 
immediate object of perception.* 

VI. Leibnitz's Theory.] The next system concern- 
ing perception, of which I shall give some account, is 
the invention of the famous German philosopher, Leib- 
nitz,! who, while he lived, held the first rank among 
the Germans in all parts of philosophy, as well as in 
mathematics, in jurisprudence, in the knowledge of 
antiquities, and in every branch both of science and of 
literature. He was highly respected by emperors, and 
by many kings and princes, who bestowed upon him 
singular marks of their esteem. He was a particular 
favorite of our Queen Caroline, consort of George II., 
with whom he continued his correspondence by letters 
after she came to the crown of Britain, till his death. 

The famous controversy between him and the British 
mathematicians, whether he or Sir Isaac Newton was 
the inventor of that noble improvement in mathemat- 

* Eeid's discontent with Arnauld's opinion — an opinion which is stated 
with great perspicuity by its author — maybe used as an argument to 
show that his own doctrine is, however ambiguous, that of intuitive or im- 
mediate perception. (See Note C.) Arnauld's theory is identical with 
the finer form of representative or mediate perception, and the difficul- 
ties of that doctrine were not overlooked by his great antagonist. Arnauld 
well objected, that, when we see a horse, according to IVlalebranche, what 
we see is in reality God himself; but Malebranche well rejoined, that, 
when we see a horse, according to Arnauld, what we see is in reality only 
a modification of ourselves. — H. 

Charpentier has published in his BibliotMque Philosophique the meta- 
physical writings of Arnauld, CEuvres Pliilosophiques, coUationni.es sar les 
meilleurs Textes, avec une Introduction par J. Simon (12mo). Arnauld, 
with the assistance of Nicole, was the author of La Logique, ou VArt cle 
Penser, of which, under the name of the Port-Royal Logic, there have been 
several editions in English. Arnauld assisted Pascal in the composition 
of several of the Lettres Provinciates His entire works fill forty-five close- 
ly printed quarto volumes. His whole life was consumed in controver- 
sies, and distracted by the persecutions to which these controversies led. 
"Nicole, who bore a share in most of his literary labors, but was of a mild- 
er character than Arnauld, told him one day, that he was weary of this 
incessant warfare, and wished to rest. 'Best!' said Arnauld ; 'will you 
not have the whole of eternity to rest in ? ' " See Bayle. Diet , Art. Ar- 
nauld, Ant.; and The Biographical Dictionary of the Society for the Diffu- 
sion of Useful Knowledge, under his name. — Ed. 

t Gottfried Wilhehn Leibnitz was born at Leipzig, July 3, 1646, and 
died at Hanover, November 14, 1714. — Ed. 



88 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

ics, called by Newton the Method of Fluxions, and by 
Leibnitz the Differential Method, engaged the attention 
of the mathematicians in Europe for several years. He 
had likewise a controversy with the learned and ju- 
dicious Dr. Samuel Clarke, about several points of the 
Newtonian philosophy which he disapproved. The 
papers which gave occasion to this controversy, with 
all the replies and rejoinders, had the honor to be trans- 
mitted from the one party to the other through the 
hands of Queen Caroline, and were afterwards pub- 
lished. 

His authority, in all matters of philosophy, is still so 
great in most parts of Germany, that they are consid- 
ered as bold spirits, and a kind of heretics, who dissent 
from him in any thing. Christian Wolf, the most 
voluminous writer in philosophy of this age, is con- 
sidered as the great interpreter and advocate of the 
Leibnitzian system, and reveres as an oracle whatever 
has dropped from the pen of Leibnitz. This author 
proposed two great works upon the mind. The first, 
which I have seen, he published with the title of Psy- 
chologia Empirica. The other was to have the title of 
Psychologia Rationalis ; and to it he refers for his ex- 
plication of the theory of Leibnitz with regard to the 
mind. But whether it was published I have not 
learned.* 

I must, therefore, take the short account I am to give 
of this system from the writings of Leibnitz himself, 
without the light which his interpreter, Wolff, may 
have thrown upon it. 

Leibnitz conceived the whole universe, bodies as 
well as minds, to be made up of monads, that is, simple 
substances, each of which is by the Creator, in the be- 

* It was published in 1734. Such careless ignorance of the most dis- 
tinguished works on the subject of an author's speculations is peculiarly 
British — H. 

Wolf, who died in 1754, was succeeded by Kant, whose Kritik der reinen 
Vernunjl appeared in 1781, and commenced a new philosophical era in 
Germany, corresponding to that which the writings of Reid commenced 
in Great Britain. The French eclectics of the present day claim to be 
heirs of what is good and enduring in both of these movements. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LEIBNITZ. 89 

ginning of its existence, endowed with certain active 
and perceptive powers. A monad, therefore, is an 
active substance, simple, without parts or figure, which 
has loitMn itself the power to produce all the changes it 
undergoes from the beginning- of its existence to eternity. 
The changes which the monad undergoes, of what 
kind soever, though they may seem to us the effect of 
causes operating from without, yet they are only the 
gradual and successive evolutions of its own internal 
powers, which would have produced all the same 
changes and motions, although there had been no other 
being in the universe. 

Every human soul is a monad joined to an organ- 
ized body, which organized body consists of an infinite 
number of monads, each having some degree of active 
and of perceptive power in itself. But the whole ma- 
chine of the body has a relation to that monad which 
we call the soul, which is, as it were, the centre of the 
whole. 

As the universe is completely filled with monads 
without any chasm or void, and thereby every body 
acts upon every other body, according to its vicinity or 
distance, and is mutually reacted upon by every other 
body, it follows, says Leibnitz, that every monad is a 
kind of living mirror, which reflects the whole universe, 
according to its point of view, and represents the whole 
more or less distinctly. 

I cannot undertake to reconcile this part of the sys- 
tem with what was before mentioned, — to wit, that 
every change in a monad is the evolution of its own 
original powers, and would have happened though no 
other substance had been created. But to proceed. 

There are different orders of monads, some higher, 
and others lower. The higher orders he calls domi- 
nant; such is the human soul. The monads that com- 
pose the organized bodies of men, animals, and plants, 
are of a lower order, and subservient to the dominant 
monads. But every monad, of whatever order, is a 
complete substance in itself, — indivisible, having no 
parts ; indestructible, because, having no parts, it can- 
8* 



90 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

not perish by any kind of decomposition. It can only 
perish by annihilation, and we have no reason to be- 
lieve that God will ever annihilate any of the beings 
which he has made. 

The monads of a lower order may, by a regular evo- 
lution of their powers, rise to a higher order. They 
may successively be joined to organized bodies, of 
various forms and different degrees of perception ; but 
they never die, nor cease to be in some degree active 
and percipient. 

This philosopher makes a distinction between per- 
ception and what he calls apperception. The first is 
common to all monads, the last proper to the higher 
orders, among which are human souls. 

By apperception he understands that degree of per- 
ception which reflects, as it were, upon itself; by which 
we are conscious of our own existence, and conscious 
of our perceptions ; by which we can reflect upon the 
operations of our own minds, and can comprehend ab- 
stract truths. The mind, in many operations, he thinks, 
particularly in sleep, and in many actions common to 
us with the brutes, has not this apperception, although 
it is still filled with a multitude of obscure and indis- 
tinct perceptions, of which we are not conscious. 

He conceives that our bodies and minds are united 
in such a manner, that neither has any physical influ- 
ence upon the other. Each performs all its operations 
by its own internal springs and powers ; yet the opera- 
tions of one correspond exactly with those of the other, 
by a preestablished harmony, just as one clock may be 
so adjusted as to keep time with another, although 
each has its own moving power, and neither receives 
any part of its motion 'from the other. So that accord- 
ing to this system all our perceptions of external ob- 
jects would be the same, though external things had 
never existed ; our perception of them would continue, 
although, by the power of God, they should this mo- 
ment be annihilated. We do not perceive external 
things because they exist, but because the soul was 
originally so constituted as to produce in itself all its 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LEIBNITZ. 91 

successive changes, and all its successive perceptions, 
independently of the external objects. 

Every perception or apperception, every operation, in 
a word, of the soul, is a necessary consequence of the 
state of it immediately preceding that operation ; and 
this state is the necessary consequence of the state pre- 
ceding it; and so backwards, until you come to its 
first formation and constitution, which produces suc- 
cessively, and by necessary consequence, all its succes- 
sive states to the end of its existence : so that in this 
respect the soul, and every monad, may be compared to 
a watch wound up, which, having the spring of its mo- 
tion in itself, by the gradual evolution of its own spring 
produces all the successive motions we observe in it. 

In this account of Leibnitz's system concerning mo- 
nads, and the preestablished harmony, I have kept as 
nearly as I could to his own expressions, in his New 
System of the Nature and Communication of Substances, 
and of the Union of Soul and Body, and in the several 
illustrations of that new system which he afterwards 
published, and in his Principles of Nature and Grace 
founded in Reason. I shall now make a few remarks 
upon this system. 

1. To pass over the irresistible necessity of all hu- 
man actions, which makes a part of this system, and 
which will be considered in another place, I observe 
first, that the distinction made between perception and 
apperception is obscure and unphilosophical. As far 
as we can discover, every operation of our mind is at- 
tended with consciousness, and particularly that which 
we call the perception of external objects ; and to speak 
of a perception of which we are not conscious, is to 
speak without any meaning. 

As consciousness is the only power by which we dis- 
cern the operations of our own minds, or can form any 
notion of them, an operation of mind of which we are 
not conscious is we know not what ; and to call such 
an operation by the name of perception is an abuse of 
language. No man can perceive an object, without 
being conscious that he perceives it. No man can 



92 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

think, without being conscious that he thinks. What 
men are not conscious of cannot, therefore, without im- 
propriety, be called either perception or thought of any 
kind. And if we will suppose operations of mind of 
which we are not conscious, and give a name to such 
creatures of our imagination, that name must signify 
what we know nothing about.* 

2. To suppose bodies organized or unorganized to be 
made up of indivisible monads which have no parts, is 
contrary to all that we know of body. It is essential to 
a body to have parts ; and every part of a body is a 
body, and has parts also. No number of parts, without 
extension or figure, not even an infinite number, if we 
may use that expression, can, by being put together, 
make a whole that has extension and figure, which all 
bodies have. 

3. It is contrary to all that we know of bodies to 
ascribe to the monads, of which they are supposed to 
be compounded, perception and active force. If a phi- 
losopher thinks proper to say, that a clod of earth both 
perceives and has active force, let him bring his proofs. 
But he ought not to expect that men who have under- 
standing will so far give it up as to receive without 
proof whatever his imagination may suggest. 

4. This system overturns all authority of our senses, 
and leaves not the least ground to believe the existence 
of the objects of sense, or the existence of any thing 
which depends upon the authority of our senses ; for our 
perception of objects, according to this system, has no 
dependence upon any thing external, and would be the 
same as it is supposing external objects had never 
existed, or that they were from this moment annihilated. 
It is remarkable that Leibnitz's system, that of Male- 
branche, and the common system of ideas, or images 



* The language in which Leibnitz expresses his doctrine of latent modi- 
fications of mind, which, though out of consciousness, manifest their ex- 
istence in their effects, is objectionable ; the doctrine itself is not only true, 
but of the very highest importance in psychology, although it has never 
yet been appreciated, or even understood, by any writer on philosophy in 
this island. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LEIBNITZ. 93 

of external objects in the mind, do all agree in over- 
turning all the authority of our senses; and this one 
thing, as long as men retain their senses, will always 
make all these systems truly ridiculous. 

5. The last observation I shall make upon this sys- 
tem, which indeed is equally applicable to all the sys- 
tems of perception I have mentioned, is, that it is all 
hypothesis, made up of conjectures and suppositions, with- 
out proof. The Peripatetics supposed sensible species 
to be sent forth by the objects of sense. The moderns 
suppose ideas in the brain, or in the mind. Male- 
branche supposed, that we perceive the ideas of the 
Divine mind. Leibnitz supposed monads and a pre- 
established harmony ; and these monads being creatures 
of his own making, he is at liberty to give them what 
properties and powers his fancy may suggest.* Such 
suppositions, while there is no proof of them offered, 
are nothing but the fictions of human fancy ; and if 
they were true, would solve no difficulty, but raise 
many new ones. It is therefore more agreeable to good 
sense, and to sound philosophy, to rest satisfied with 
what our consciousness and attentive reflection discover 
to us of the nature of perception, than, by inventing 
hypotheses, to attempt to explain things which are 
above the reach of human understanding.^ 

* It is a disputed point whether Leibnitz was serious in his monadology 
and preestablished harmony. — H. 

t God. Guil. Leibnitii Opera Philosophica quce extant Latino, Gallica Ger- 
manica omnia, edited by Erdmann (royal 8vo, Berlin, 1840), is the best 
edition of Leibnitz's metaphysical writings. Most of them are also in- 
cluded in CEuvres de Leibnitz, published, with an introduction, by M. 
Jacques (2 vols., 12mo, Paris, 1842). The best life of this philosopher is 
in German, — Gottfried Wilhelm Freiherr von Leibnitz, Eine Biographie, von 
Dr. G.E. Gukrauer (2 vols., 12mo, Breslau. 1842). A life in English on 
the basis of this work, but much abridged, has been published by John M. 
Mackie (12mo, Boston, 1845). For an exposition of his system, see 
Feuerbach, Darstelluny und Kritik der Leibnitzichen Philosophie ; Buhle, His- 
toire de la Philosophie Moderne, Tome IV. Chap. III. ; Biographie Uiii- 
verselfe, Art Leibnitz ; Stewart's Dissertation, Part II. Sect. II. 

The ashes of Leibnitz repose under the court church of Hanover, with 
no other inscription to mark the spot than these two words : — Ossa 
Leibnitii. But, as Mr. Stewart observes, " the best eloae of Leibnitz is 
furnished by the literary history of the eighteenth century. Whoever 
takes the pains to compare it with his works, and with his epistolary cor- 



94 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

VII. Locke's Theory.] The reputation which Locke's 
Essay concerning' Human Understanding- had at home 
from the beginning, and which it has gradually acquired 
abroad, is a sufficient testimony of its merit.* There is 
perhaps no book of the metaphysical kind that has 
been so generally read by those who understand the 
language, or that is more adapted to teach men to 
think with precision,! an d to inspire them with that 
candor and love of truth which is the genuine spirit of 
philosophy. He gave, I believe, the first example in 
the English language of writing on such abstract sub- 
jects with a remarkable degree of simplicity and per- 
spicuity ; and in this he has been happily imitated by 
others that came after him. No author has more suc- 
cessfully pointed out the danger of ambiguous words, 
and the importance of having distinct and determinate 
notions in judging and reasoning. His observations 
on the various powers of the human understanding, on 
the use and abuse of words, and on the extent and 
limits of human knowledge, are drawn from attentive 
reflection on the operations of his own mind, the true 
source of all real knowledge on these subjects, and 
show an uncommon degree of penetration and judg- 
ment. But he needs no panegyric of mine ; and I 
mention these things only that, when I have occasion 
to differ from him, I may not be thought insensible of 
the merit of an author whom I highly respect, and to 
whom I owe my first lights in those studies, as well as 
my attachment to them. J 

respondence, will find reason to doubt, whether, at the singular era when 
he appeared, he could have more accelerated the advancement of knowl- 
edge by the concentration of his studies, than he has actually done by the 
universality of his aims ; and whether he does not afford one of the few 
instances to which the words of the poet may literally be applied : — 

' Si non errasset, fecerat ille minus.' " 

— Ed. 
* John Locke was born at Wrington, near Bristol, August 29, 1632, and 
died at the house of his friend, Sir Francis Masham, at Oates, in Essex, 
October 28, 1704, where he had passed the last twelve years of his life. 
— Ed 

t To praise Locke for precision is rather too much. — H. 

j: Sir James Mackintosh has said : — " The Treatise on the Law of War 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LOCKE. 95 

He sets out in his essay with a full conviction, com- 
mon to him with other philosophers, that ideas in the 
mind are the objects of all our thoughts in every oper- 
ation of the understanding. This leads him to use 
the word idea* so very frequently, beyond what was 
usual in the English language, that he thought it neces- 
sary in his introduction to make this apology : — "It 
being that term," says he, "which, I think, serves best 
to stand for whatsoever is the object of the understand- 
ing, when a man thinks, I have used it to express what- 
ever is meant by phantasm, notion, species, or whatever 
it is which the mind can be employed about in think- 
ing ; and I could not avoid frequently using it. I pre- 
sume it will be granted me, that there are such ideas 
in men's minds ; every man is conscious of them in 
himself, and men's words and actions will satisfy him 
that they are in others." 

Speaking of the reality of our knowledge, he says, — 
" It is evident the mind knows not things immediately, 
but only by the intervention of the ideas it has of them. 
Our knowledge, therefore, is real, only so far as there 
is a conformity between our ideas and the reality of 
things. But what shall be here the criterion ? How 
shall the mind, when it perceives nothing but its own 
ideas, know that they agree with things themselves ? 
This, though it seems not to want difficulty, yet I think 
there be two sorts of ideas that we may be assured 
agree with things." 

We see that Mr. Locke was aware, no less than Des- 
cartes, that the doctrine of ideas made it necessary, and 
at the same time difficult, to prove the existence of a 
material ivorld without us ; because the mind, accord- 
ing to that doctrine, perceives nothing but a world of 



and Peace, the Essay concerning Human Understanding, the Spirit of Laws, 
and the Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations, are the works 
which have most directly influenced the general opinion of Europe dining 
the last two centuries." — Edinburgh Review, Vol. XXXVI. p. 240. The 
Essay concerning Human Understanding was first printed in 1690. — Ed. 

* Locke may be said to have first naturalized the word in English philo- 
sophical language, in its Cartesian extension. — II. 



96 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

ideas in itself. Not only Descartes, but Malebranche 
and Arnauld, had perceived this difficulty, and attempt- 
ed to remove it with little success. Mr. Locke attempts 
the same thing; but his arguments are feeble. He 
even seems to be conscious of this ; for he concludes 
his reasoning with this observation, — " That we have 
evidence sufficient to direct us in attaining the good 
and avoiding the evil caused by external objects, and 
that this is the important concern we have in being 
made acquainted with them." This, indeed, is saying 
no more than will be granted by those who deny the 
existence of a material world. 

As there is no material difference between Locke and 
Descartes with regard to the perception of objects by 
the senses, there is the less occasion, in this place, 
to take notice of all their differences in other points. 
They differed about the origin of our ideas. Descartes 
thought some of them were innate ; * the other main- 
tained, that there are no innate ideas, and that they are 
all derived from two sources, — to wit, sensation and 
reflection; meaning by sensation the operations of our 
external senses, and by reflection that attention which 
we are capable of giving to the operations of our own 
minds.f 

They differed with regard to the essence both of mat- 
ter and of mind : the British philosopher holding, that 
the real essence of both is beyond the reach of human 
knowledge; the other conceiving, that the very essence 



* The doctrine of Descartes, in relation to innate ideas, has been very 
generally misunderstood ; and by no one more than by Locke. What it 
really amounted to is clearly stated in his strictures on the Program of 
Regius. Justice has latterly been done him, among others, by Mr. Stew- 
art, in his Dissertation, and by M. Laromiguiere, in his Corns. See also the 
old controversy of De Vries with Rbell on this point. — H. 

t That Locke did not (as even Mr. Stewart supposes) introduce reflec- 
tion, either name or thing, into the philosophy of mind, see Note I. Nor 
was he even the first explicitly to enunciate sense and reflection as the two 
sources of our knowledge ; for I can show that this had been done in a 
far more philosophical manner by some of the schoolmen ; reflection with 
them not being merely, as with Locke, a source of adventitious, empirical, 
or a posteriori knowledge, but the mean by which we disclose also the 
native or a priori cognitions which the intellect itself contains. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LOCKE. 97 

of mind consists in thought, and that of matter in ex- 
tension, by which he made matter and space not to 
differ in reality, and no part of space to be void of 
matter. 

Mr. Locke explained, more distinctly than had been 
done before, the operations of the mind in classing the 
various objects of thought, and reducing them to genera 
and species. He was the first, I think, who distin- 
guished in substances what he calls the nominal essence, 
which is only the notion we form of a genus or species, 
and which we express by a definition, from the real 
essence or internal constitution of the thing, which 
makes it to be what it is.* Without this distinction, 
the subtile disputes which tortured the schoolmen for 
so many ages, in the controversy between the nominal- 
ists and realists, could never be brought to an issue. 
He shows distinctly how we form abstract and general 
notions, and the use and necessity of them in reason- 
ing. And as (according to the received principles of 
philosophers) every notion of our mind must have for 
its object an idea in the mind itself, he thinks that we 
form abstract ideas by leaving out of the idea of an 
individual every thing wherein it differs from other in- 
dividuals of the same species or genus ; and that this 
power of forming abstract ideas is that which chieHy 
distinguishes us from brute animals, in whom he could 
see no evidence of any abstract ideas. 

Since the time of Descartes, philosophers have dif- 
fered much with regard to the share they ascribe to the 
mind itself in the fabrication of those representative 
beings called ideas, and the manner in which this work 
is carried on. 

Of the authors I have met with, Dr. Robert Hook is 
the most explicit. He was one of the most ingenious 
and active members of the Royal Society of London 
at its first institution, and frequently read lectures to 
the Society, which were published among his posthu- 
mous works. In his Lectures upon Light, § 7, he makes 

* Locke has no originality in this respect. — H. 

9 



98 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

ideas to be material substances ; and thinks that the 
brain is furnished with a proper kind of matter for fab- 
ricating the ideas of each sense. The ideas of sight, 
he thinks, are formed of a kind of matter resembling 
the Bononian stone, or some kind of phosphorus ; that 
the ideas of sound are formed of some matter resem- 
bling the chords or glasses which take a sound from the 
vibrations of the air ; and so of the rest. 

The soul, he thinks, may fabricate some hundreds of 
those ideas in a day ; and that, as they are formed, 
they are pushed farther off" from the centre of the brain, 
where the soul resides. By this means, they make a 
continued chain of ideas, coiled up in the brain, the 
first end of which is farthest removed from the centre 
or seat of the soul, and the other end is always at the 
centxe, being the last idea formed, which is always pres- 
ent the moment when considered ; and therefore, ac- 
cording as there is a greater number of ideas between 
the present sensation or thought in the centre and any 
other, the soul is apprehensive of a larger portion of 
time interposed. 

Mr. Locke has not entered into so minute a detail of 
this manufacture of ideas ; but he ascribes to the mind 
a very considerable hand in forming its own ideas. 
With regard to our sensations, the mind is passive, 
" they being produced in us only by different degrees 
and modes of motion in our animal spirits, variously 
agitated by external objects." These, however, cease 
to be, as soon as they cease to be perceived ; but, by 
the faculties of memory and imagination, "the mind, 
has an ability, when it wills, to revive them again, and, 
as it were, to paint them anew upon itself, though some 
with more, some with less difficulty." 

As to the ideas of reflection, he ascribes them to no 
other cause but to that attention which the mind is 
capable of giving to its own operations : these, there- 
fore, are formed by the mind itself. He ascribes like- 
wise to the mind the power of compounding its simple 
ideas into complex ones of various forms ; of repeating 
them, and adding the repetitions together ; of dividing 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LOCKE. 99 

and classing them; of comparing them, and, from that 
comparison, of forming the ideas of their relation; 
nay, of forming a general idea of a species or genus, 
by taking from the idea of an individual every thing 
by which it is distinguished from other individuals of 
the kind, till at last it becomes an abstract general idea, 
common to all the individuals of the kind. 

The ideas we have of the various qualities of bodies 
are not all, as Mr. Locke thinks, of the same kind. 
Some of them are images or resemblances of what is 
really in the body ; others are not. There are certain 
qualities inseparable from matter; such as extension, 
solidity, figure, mobility. Our ideas of these are real 
resemblances of the qualities in the body ; and these he 
calls primary qualities : but color, sound, taste, smell, 
heat, and cold he calls secondary qualities, and thinks 
that they are only powers in bodies of producing cer- 
tain sensations in us; which sensations have nothing 
resembling them, though they are commonly thought to 
be exact resemblances of something in the body.* 
" Thus," says he, " the ideas of heat or light, which we 
receive, by our eye or touch, from the sun, are com- 
monly thought real qualities existing in the sun, and 
something more than mere powers in it." 

Perhaps it was unfortunate for Mr. Locke that he 
used the word idea so very frequently as to make it 
very difficult to give the attention necessary to put it 
always to the same meaning. And it appears evident, 
that, in many places, he means nothing more by it than 
the notion or conception we have of any object of 
thought; that is, the act of the mind in conceiving it, 
and not the object conceived, f 



* Locke only gave a new meaning to old terms. The first and second, 
or the primary and secondary qualities of Aristotle, denoted a distinction 
similar to, hut not identical with, that in question. Locke distinguished 
nothing which had not heen more precisely discriminated by Aristotle and 
the Cartesians. — H. 

t When we contemplate a triangle, we may consider it either as a com- 
plement of three sides or of three angles ; not that the three sides and the 
three angles are possible except through each other, but because we may 
in thought view the figure — ijim triangle, in reality one and indivisible — 



100 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

In explaining this word, he says that he uses it for 
whatever is meant by phantasm, notion, species. Here 
are three synonymes to the word idea. The first and 
last are very proper to express the philosophical mean- 
ing of the word, being terms of art in the Peripatetic 
philosophy, and signifying images of external things in 
the mind, which, according to that philosophy, are ob- 
jects of thought. But the word notion is a word in 
common language, whose meaning agrees exactly with 
the popular meaning of the word idea, but not with the 
philosophical. 

When these two different meanings of the word idea 
are confounded in a studied explication of it, there is 
little reason to expect that they should be carefully dis- 
tinguished in the frequent use of it. There are many 
passages in the essay, in which, to make them intelli- 
gible, the word idea must be taken in one of those 
senses, and many others, in which it must be taken in 
the other. It seems probable that the author, not at- 
tending to this ambiguity of the word, used it in the one 
sense or the other, as the subject-matter required; and 
the far greater part of his readers have done the same. 

There is a third sense in which he uses the word not 
unfrequently, — to signify objects of thought that are not 

in different relations. In like manner, we may consider a representative 
act of knowledge in two relations, — 1st, as an act representative of some- 
thing, and, 2d, as an act cognitive of that representation, although, in 
truth, these are both only one indivisible energy, — the representation only 
existing as known, the cognition being only possible in a representation. 
Thus, e. g., in the imagination of a Centaur, the Centaur represented is the 
Centaur known, the Centaur known is the Centaur represented. It is one act 
under two relations, — a relation to the subject knowing, a relation to the ob- 
ject represented. But to a cognitive act considered in these several relations 
we may give either different names, or we may confound them under one, 
or we may do both: and this is actually done ; some words expressing only 
one relation, others both or either, and others properly one, but abusively 
also the other. Thus idea properly denotes an act of thought considered 
in relation to an external something beyond the sphere of consciousness, 
— a representation ; but some philosophers, as Locke, abuse it to compre- 
hend the thought also, viewed as cognitive of this representation. Again, 
perception, notion, conception, <^c., {concept is, unfortunately, obsolete,) com- 
prehend both, or may be used to denote either of the relations ; and it 
is only by the context that we can ever vaguely discover in which applica- 
tion they are intended. This is unfortunate ; but so it is. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LOCKE. 101 

in the mind, but external. Of this he seems to be sen- 
sible, and somewhere makes an apology for it. When 
he affirms, as he does in innumerable places, that all 
human knowledge consists in the perception of the 
agreement or disagreement of our ideas, it is impossi- 
ble to put a meaning upon this, consistent with his 
principles, unless he means by ideas every object of 
human thought, whether mediate or immediate; every 
thing, in a word, that can be signified by the subject or 
by the predicate of a proposition. 

Thus we see that the word idea has three different 
meanings in the essay; and the author seems to have 
used it sometimes in one, sometimes in another, with- 
out being aware of any change in the meaning. The 
reader slides easily into the same fallacy, that meaning 
occurring most readily to his mind which gives the best 
sense to what he reads. I have met with persons pro- 
fessing no slight acquaintance with the Essay concerning 
Human Understanding; who maintained that the word 
idea, wherever it occurs, means nothing more than 
thought; and that where the author speaks of ideas 
as images in the mind, and as objects of thought, he is 
not to be understood as speaking properly, but figura- 
tively or analogically : and, indeed, I apprehend that it 
would be no small advantage to many passages in the 
book, if they could admit of this interpretation. 

It is not the fault of this philosopher alone to have 
given too little attention to the distinction between the 
operations of the mind, and the objects of those opera- 
tions. Although this distinction be familiar to the vul- 
gar, and found in the structure of all languages, philos- 
ophers, when they speak of ideas, often confound the 
two together; and their theory concerning ideas has 
led them to do so ; for ideas, being supposed to be a 
shadowy kind of beings, intermediate between the 
thought and the object of thought, sometimes seem to 
coalesce with the thought, sometimes with the object 
of thought, and sometimes to have a distinct existence 
of their own. 

The same philosophical theory of ideas has led phi- 
9* 



102 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

losophers to confound the different operations of the 
understanding, and to call them all by the name of 
perception* Mr. Locke, though not free from this 
fault, is not so often chargeable with it as some who 
came after him. The vulgar give the name of percep- 
tion to that immediate knowledge of external objects 
which we have by our external senses. This is its 
proper meaning in our language, though sometimes it 
may be applied to other things metaphorically or ana- 
logically. When I think of any thing that does not 
exist, as of the republic of Oceana, I do not perceive 
it; I only conceive or imagine it.f When I think of 
what happened to me yesterday, I do not perceive, but 
remember it. When I am pained with the gout, it is 
not proper to say I perceive the pain ; I feel it, or am 
conscious of it.J It is not an object of perception, but 
of sensation and of consciousness. So far, the vulgar 
distinguish very properly the different operations of the 
mind, and never confound the names of things so dif- 
ferent in their nature. But the theory of ideas leads 
philosophers to conceive all those operations to be of 
one nature, and to give them one name. They are all, 
according to that theory, the perception of ideas in the 
mind. Perceiving, remembering, imagining, being con- 
scious, are all perceiving ideas in the mind, and are 

* No more than by calling them all by the name of cognitions, or acts of 
consciousness. There was no reason, either from etymology or usage, why 
perception should not signify the energy of immediately apprehending, in 
general ; and until Reid limited the word to our apprehension of an external 
world, it was, in fact, employed by philosophers as tantamount to an act of 
consciousness. We were in need of a word to express our sensitive cog- 
nitions as distinct from our sensitive feelings, (for the term sensation involved 
both.) and therefore Reid's restriction should be adopted ; but his criti- 
cism of other philosophers for their employment of the term in a wider 
meaning is wholly groundless. — H. 

t And why ? Simply because we do not, by such an act, know or appre- 
hend such an object to exist, which is what perception, in its wider accepta- 
tion, was used to denote ; we merely represent the object. We could say, 
however, that we perceived (as we could say that we were conscious of) the 
republic of Oceana, as imagined by us, after Harrington. — H. 

\ Because the feeling of pain, though only possible through conscious- 
ness, is not an act of knowledge. But it could have been properly said, 
I perceive a feeling of pain. At any rate, the expression I perceive a pain 
is as correct as lam conscious of a pain. — II. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. LOCKE. 103 

called perceptions. Hence it is that philosophers speak 
of the perceptions of memory and the perceptions of 
imagination. They make sensation to be a perception, 
and every thing we perceive by our senses to be an 
idea of sensation. Sometimes they say, that they are 
conscious of the ideas in their own minds ; sometimes, 
that they perceive them. 

However improbable it may appear that philoso- 
phers, who have taken pains to study the operations 
of their own minds, should express them less properly 
and less distinctly than the vulgar, it seems really to be 
the case; and the only account that can be given of 
this strange phenomenon I take to be this : that the 
vulgar seek no theory to account for the operations of 
their minds ; they know that they see, and hear, and 
remember, and imagine ; and those who think distinct- 
ly will express these operations' distinctly, as their con- 
sciousness represents them to the mind. But philoso- 
phers think they ought to know, not only that there are 
such operations, but how they are performed ; how they 
see, and hear, and remember, and imagine ; and, hav- 
ing invented a theory to explain these operations by 
ideas or images in the mind, they suit their expressions 
to their theory ; and, as a false comment throws a cloud 
upon the text, so a false theory darkens the phenomena 
which it attempts to explain.* 

* An authentic and ample, but ill-digested and unsatisfactory Life of 
John Locke, ivith Extracts from his Correspondence, Journals, and Common- 
place Books, was published by Lord King (2d ed , 2 vols., 8vo, London, 
1830). The best and most complete edition of his works is that in 10 
vols., 8vo, London, 1801, and again in 1810. The criticisms and polemics 
to which his writings have given rise are innumerable, of which the fol- 
lowing may be referred to as being- among the most recent and remark- 
able : — De Maistre, Les Soirdes de Saint-Petersbourge, Sixieme Entreticn. 
Cousin, Ilistoire de la Philosophie du XVI1P Steele, Tome II. ; of this we 
have an English translation by Professor Henry, Elements of Psychology : 
included in a Critical Examination of Locke's Essay on the Human Under- 
standing (3d ed., 12mo, New York, 1842). Tennemann's Abh. tiher den 
Emj)irismus in der Philosophie, vorziiglich den L^ockischen, inserted in the 
third volume of his German translation of Locke's Essay. Hallam's Lit- 
erat are of Europe, from 1650 to 1700, Chap. Ill Morell's Hist, and Grit. 
Vieio of Speculative Philosophy, Part I. Chap. I. Sect. II. Compare what 
Stewart says of Locke, in the first of his Philosophical Essays, witli what 
he says of him in his Dissertation, Part II. Sect. I. and II. — Ed. 



104 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

VIII. Berkeley's Theory.] George Berkeley,* after- 
wards Bishop of Cloyne, published his New Theory of 
Vision in 1709 ; his Treatise concerning the Principles 
of Human Knowledge, in 1710; and his Dialogues be- 
tiveen Hylas and Philonous, in 1713 ; being then a Fel- 
low of Trinity College, Dublin. He is acknowledged 
universally to have great merit, as an excellent writer, 
and a very acute and clear reasoner on the most ab- 
stract subjects, not to speak of his virtues as a man, 
which were very conspicuous ; yet the doctrine chiefly 
held forth in the treatises above mentioned, especially 
in the last two, has generally been thought so very ab- 
surd, that few can be brought to think, either that he 
believed it himself, or that he seriously meant to per- 
suade others of its truth. 

He maintains, and thinks he has demonstrated, by a 
variety of arguments, grounded on principles of phi- 
losophy universally received, that there is no such thing 
as matter in the universe; that sun and moon, earth 
and sea, our own bodies, and those of our friends, are 
nothing but ideas in the minds of those who think of 
them, and that they have no existence when they are 
not the objects of thought ; that all that is in the uni- 
verse may be reduced to two categories, — to wit, minds, 
and ideas in the mind. 

But however absurd this doctrine might appear to 
the unlearned, who consider the existence of the objects 
of sense as the most evident of all truths, and what no 
man in his senses can doubt, the philosophers, who had 
been accustomed to consider ideas as the immediate 
objects of all thought, had no title to view this doctrine 
of Berkeley in so unfavorable a light. 

They were taught by Descartes, and by all that came 
after him, that the existence of the objects of sense is 
not self-evident, but requires to be proved by argu- 
ments ; and although Descartes, and many others, had 



* Born at Kilerin, in the county of Kilkenny, March 12, 1684, and died 
at Oxford, January 14, 1753, whither he had repaired a few months before 
to superintend the education of one of his sons. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. 105 

labored to find arguments for this purpose, there did 
not appear to be that force and clearness in them which 
might have been expected in a matter of such impor- 
tance. Mr. Norris had declared, that, after all the argu- 
ments that had been offered, the existence of an exter- 
nal world is only probable, but by no means certain. 
Malebranche thought it rested upon the authority of 
revelation, and that the arguments drawn from reason 
were not perfectly conclusive. Others thought, that 
the argument from revelation was a mere sophism, be- 
cause revelation comes to us by our senses, and must 
rest upon their authority. 

Thus we see that the new philosophy had been mak- 
ing gradual approaches towards Berkeley's opinion ; 
and, whatever others might do, the philosophers had no 
title to look upon it as absurd, or unworthy of a fair 
•examination. Several authors attempted to answer 
his arguments, but with little success, and others ac- 
knowledged that they could neither answer them nor 
assent to them. It is probable the Bishop made but 
few converts to his doctrine ; but it is certain he made 
some ; and that he himself continued, to the end of his 
life, firmly persuaded, not only of its truth, but of its 
great importance for the improvement of human knowl- 
edge, and especially for the defence of religion. Dial. 
Pre/. " If the principles which I here endeavour to 
propagate are admitted for true, the consequences 
which I think evidently flow from thence are, that 
atheism and skepticism will be utterly destroyed, many 
intricate points made plain, great difficulties solved, 
several useless parts of science retrenched, speculation 
referred to practice, and men reduced from paradoxes 
to common sense." 

In the Theory of Vision he goes no farther than to 
assert, that the objects of sight are nothing but ideas 
in the mind, granting, or at least not denying, that there 
is a tangible world, which is really external, and which 
exists whether we perceive it or not. Whether the 
reason of this was, that his system had not, at that 
time, wholly opened to his own mind, or whether he 



106 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

thought it prudent to let it into the minds of his read- 
ers by degrees, I cannot say. I think he insinuates the 
last as the reason in the Principles of Human Knowl- 
edge. 

The Theory of Vision, however, taken by itself, and 
without relation to the main branch of his system, 
contains very important discoveries, and marks of great 
genius. He distinguishes, more accurately than any 
that went before him, between the immediate objects 
of sight, and those of the other senses which are early 
associated with them : he shows, that distance, of it- 
self, and immediately, is not seen ; but that we learn to 
judge of it by certain sensations and perceptions which 
are connected with it. This is a very important obsei - - 
vation, and I believe was first made by this author.* 
It gives much new light to the operations of our senses, 
and serves to account for many phenomena in optics; 
of which the greatest adepts in that science had always 
either given a false account, or acknowledged that they 
could give none at all. 

We may observe by the way, that the ingenious 
author seems not to have attended to a distinction by 
which his general assertion ought to have been limited. 
It is true that the distance of an object from the eye is 
not immediately seen ; but there is a certain kind of 
distance of one object from another which we see im- 
mediately. The author acknowledges that there are 
a visible extension and visible figures, which are proper 
objects of sight; there must therefore be a visible dis- 
tance. Astronomers call it angular distance ; and 
although they measure it by the angle which is made 
by two lines drawn from the eye to the two distinct 
objects, yet it is immediately perceived by sight, even 
by those who never thought of that angle. 

He led the way in showing how we learn to perceive 
the distance of an object from the eye, though this 
speculation was carried farther by others who came 
after him. He made the distinction between that ex- 

* This last statement is inaccurate. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. 107 

tension and figure which we perceive by sight only, 
and that which we perceive by touch ; calling the first 
visible, the last, tangible extension and figure. He 
showed, likewise, that tangible extension, and not visi- 
ble, is the object of geometry, although mathematicians 
commonly use visible diagrams in their demonstra- 
tions.* 

The notion of extension and figure which we get 
from sight only, and that which we get from touch, 
have been so constantly conjoined from our infancy in 
all the judgments we form of the objects of sense, that 
it required great abilities to distinguish them accu- 
rately, and to assign to each sense what truly belongs 
to it ; " so difficult a thing it is," as Berkeley justly 
observes, "to dissolve a union so early begun, and con- 
firmed by so long a habit." This point he has labored, 
through the whole of the essay on vision, with that un- 
common penetration and judgment which he possessed, 
and with as great success as could be expected in a 
first attempt upon so abstruse a subject. 

In the new philosophy, the pillars by which the ex- 
istence of a material world was supported were so 
feeble, that it did not require the force of a Samson to 
bring them down ; and in this we have not so much 
reason to admire the strength of Berkeley's genius, as 
his boldness in publishing to the world an opinion, 
which the unlearned would be apt to interpret as the 
sign of a crazy intellect. A man who was firmly per- 
suaded of the doctrine universally received by philos- 
ophers concerning ideas, if he could but take courage 
to call in question the existence of a material world, 
would easily find unanswerable arguments in that doc- 
trine. " Some truths there are," says Berkeley, " so 
near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only 
open his eyes to see them. Such," he adds, " I take 
this important one to be, that all the choir of heaven, 



* Properly speaking, it is neither tangible nor visible extension winch is 
the object of geometry, but intelligible, pure, or a priori extension. But of 
this distinction more hereafter. — H. 



108 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

and furniture of the earth ; in a word, all those bodies 
which compose the mighty frame of the world ; have 
not any subsistence without a mind." — Princ, Sect. VI. 

The principle from which this important conclusion 
is obviously deduced, is laid down in the first sentence 
of his Principles of Knowledge as evident : and, indeed, 
it had always been acknowledged by philosophers. 
" It is evident," says he, " to any one who takes a sur- 
vey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are 
either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else 
such as are perceived by attending to the passions and 
operations of the mind; or, lastly, ideas formed by help 
of memory and imagination, either compounding, di- 
viding, or barely representing those originally perceived 
in the foresaid ways." 

This is the foundation on which the whole system 
rests. If this be true, then, indeed, the existence of a 
material world must be a dream that has imposed upon 
all mankind from the beginning of the world. 

The foundation on which such a fabric rests ought 
to be very solid, and well established ; yet Berkeley 
says nothing more for it than that " it is evident." If 
he means that it is self-evident, this, indeed, might be a 
good reason for not offering any direct argument in 
proof of it. But I apprehend this cannot justly be 
said. Self-evident propositions are those which appear 
evident to every man of sound understanding, who 
apprehends the meaning of them distinctly, and attends 
to them without prejudice. Can this be said of this 
proposition, that all the objects of our knowledge are 
ideas in our own minds ?* I believe, that, to any man 



* To the idealist, it is of perfect indifference whether this proposition, 
in Reid's sense of the expression ideas, be admitted, or whether it be held 
that we are conscious of nothing but of the modifications of our own minds. 
For on the supposition that we can know the non-ego only in and through 
the ego, it follows, (since we can know nothing immediately of which we 
are not conscious, and it being allowed that we are conscious only of 
mind,) that it is contradictory to suppose aught, as known, (i. e. any object 
of knowledge.) to be known otherwise than as a phenomenon of mind. 
— H. 

In another connection, Sir W. Hamilton had said, that we might give 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. 109 

uninstructed in philosophy, this proposition will appear 
very improbable, if not absurd. However scanty his 
knowledge may be, he considers the sun and moon, the 
earth and sea, as objects of it: and it will be difficult 
to persuade him, that those objects of his knowledge 
are ideas in his own mind, and have no existence when 
he does not think of them. If I may presume to speak 
my own sentiments, I once believed this doctrine of 
ideas so firmly, as to embrace the whole of Berkeley's 
system in consequence of it; till, finding other conse- 
quences to follow from it which gave me more uneasi- 
ness than the want of a material world, it came into 
my mind, more than forty years ago, to put the ques- 
tion, What evidence have I for this doctrine, that all 
the objects of my knowledge are ideas in my own 
mind? From that time to the present, I have been 



up the supposition of the existence of ideas as tertia cjucedam, distinct at 
once from the material object and the immaterial subject, and yet be un- 
able to confute the modern doctrine of egoistical idealism, which is founded 
on the doctrine, " that all our knowledge is merely subjective, or of the 
mind itself ; that the ego has no immediate cognizance of a non-ego as ex- 
isting, but that the non-ego is only represented to us in a modification of the 
self-conscious ego. This doctrine being admitted, the idealist has only to 
show that the supposition of a non-ego, or external world really existent, is 
a groundless and unnecessary assumption; for, while the law of parcimonu 
prohibits the multiplication of substances or causes beyond what the phe- 
nomena require, we have manifestly no right to postulate for the non-ego 
the dignity of an independent substance beyond the ego, seeing that this 
non-ego is, ex hypothesis known to us, consequently exists for us, only as a 
phenomenon of the ego." Hence he argues that the Scotch philosophers, 
including Reid, did not go far enough ; for their doctrine respecting the 
mere suggestion of extension, on occasion of certain sensations, involves 
the very groundwork on which modern idealism reposes. " All our knowl- 
edge of the non-ego is thus rendered merely ideal and mediate; we have 
no knowledge of any really objective reality, except through a subjective 
representation or notion; in other words, we are only immediately cog- 
nizant of certain modes of our own minds, and, in and through them, 
mediately warned of the phenomena of the material universe." Taking 
tin- position, even the argument from common sense against idealism be- 
comes unavailing; "for the common sense of mankind only assures us of 
thi' existence of an external and extended world, in assuring us that we 
arc conscious, not merely of the phenomena of mind in relation to matter, 
but of the phenomena of matter in relation to mind, — in other words, 
that we are immediately percipient of extended things." Reid himself, he 
says, seems to have become obscurely aware of this condition, and to have 
accommodated his later views to it. — Ed. 

10 



110 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

candidly and impartially, as I think, seeking for the 
evidence of this principle, but can find none, except- 
ing the authority of philosophers. 

Berkeley foresaw the opposition that would be made 
to his system, from two different quarters : first, from 
the philosophers ; and, secondly, from the vulgar, who 
are led by the plain dictates of nature. The first he 
had the courage to oppose openly and avowedly ; the 
second he dreaded much more, and therefore takes a 
great deal of pains, and, I think, uses some art, to court 
into his party. This is particularly observable in his 
Dialogues. He sets out with a declaration, Dial. 1, 
" That, of late, he had quitted several of the sublime 
notions he had got in the schools of the philosophers 
for vulgar opinions," and assures Hylas, his fellow- 
dialogist, " That, since this revolt from metaphysical 
notions to the plain dictates of nature and common 
sense, he found his understanding strangely enlight- 
ened ; so that he could now easily comprehend a great 
many things, which before were all mystery and rid- 
tlle." Pref. to Dial. " If his principles are admitted for 
true, men will be reduced from paradoxes to common 
sense." At the same time, he acknowledges, " That 
they carry with them a great opposition to the preju- 
dices of philosophers, which have so far prevailed 
against the common sense and natural notions of man- 
kind." 

When Hylas objects to him, Dial. 3, " You can 
never persuade me, Philonous, that the denying of mat- 
ter or corporeal substance is not repugnant to the uni- 
versal sense* of mankind"; he answers, "I wish both 
our opinions were fairly stated, and submitted to the 
judgment of men who had plain common sense, with- 
out the prejudices of a learned education. Let me be 
represented as one who trusts his senses, who thinks 
he knows the things he sees and feels, and entertains 
no doubt of their existence. If by material substance 
is meant only sensible body, that which is seen and felt, 
(and the unphilosophical part of the world, I dare say, 
mean no more,) then I am more certain of matter's ex- 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. Ill 

istence than you or any other philosopher pretend to 
be. If there be any thing which makes the generality 
of mankind averse from the notions I espouse, it is a 
misapprehension that I deny the reality of sensible 
things : but as it is you who are guilty of that, and not 
T, it follows, that, in truth, their aversion is against 
your notions, and not mine. I am content to appeal 
to the common sense of the world for the truth of my 
notion. I am of a vulgar cast, simple enough to be- 
lieve my senses, and to leave things as 1 find them. I 
cannot, for my life, help thinking that snow is white, 
and fire hot." 

When Hylas is at last entirely converted, he observes 
to Philonous, " After all, the controversy about matter, 
in the strict acceptation of it, lies altogether between 
you and the philosophers, whose principles, I acknowl- 
edge, are not near so natural, or so agreeable to the 
common sense of mankind, and Holy Scripture, as 
yours." Philonous observes in the end, " That he does 
not pretend to be a setter up of new notions ; his en- 
deavours tend only to unite, and to place in a clearer 
light, that truth which was before shared between the 
vulgar and the philosophers ; the former being of opin- 
ion, that those things they immediately perceive are the 
real things, and the latter, that the things immediately 
perceived are ideas which exist only in the mind; which 
two things put together do, in effect, constitute the 
substance of what he advances." And he concludes 
by observing, " That those principles which at first 
view lead to skepticism, pursued to a certain point, 
bring men back to common sense." 

These passages show sufficiently the author's concern 
to reconcile his system to the plain dictates of nature 
and common sense, while he expresses no concern to 
reconcile it to the received doctrines of philosophers. 
He is fond of taking part with the vulgar against the 
philosophers, and of vindicating common sense against 
their innovations. What pity is it that he did not 
carry this suspicion of the doctrine of philosophers so 
far as to doubt of that philosophical tenet on which 



112 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

his whole system is built, — to wit, that the things im- 
mediately perceived by the senses are ideas which exist 
only in the mind ! 

After all, it seems no easy matter to make the vul- 
gar opinion and that of Berkeley to meet. And to 
accomplish this, he seems to me to draw each out of 
its line towards the other, not without some straining. 
The vulgar opinion he reduces to this, that the very 
things which we perceive by our senses do really exist. 
This he grants. For these things, says he, are ideas in 
our minds, or complexions of ideas, to which we give 
one name, and consider as one thing; these are the im- 
mediate objects of sense, and these do really exist. 
As to the notion, that those things have an absolute 
external existence, independent of being perceived by 
any mind, he thinks that this is no notion of the vul- 
gar, but a refinement of philosophers ; and that the 
notion of material substance, as a substratum or sup- 
port of that collection of sensible qualities to which 
we give the name of an apple or a melon, is likewise 
an invention of philosophers, and is not found with the 
vulgar till they are instructed by philosophers. The 
substance not being an object of sense, the vulgar never 
think of it ; or, if they are taught the use of the word, 
they mean no more by it but that collection of sensible 
qualities which they, from finding them conjoined in 
nature, have been accustomed to call by one name, and 
to consider as one thing. 

Thus he draws the vulgar opinion near to his own ; 
and, that he may meet it half way, he acknowledges 
that material things have a real existence out of the 
mind of this or that person ; but the question, says he, 
between the materialist and me is, Whether they have 
an absolute existence distinct from their being perceived 
by God, and exterior to all minds ? This, indeed, he 
says, some heathens and philosophers have affirmed ; 
but whoever entertains notions of the Deity suitable to 
the Holy Scripture will be of another opinion. 

But here an objection occurs, which it required all 
his ingenuity to answer. It is this. The ideas in my 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. 113 

mind cannot be the same with the ideas of any other 
mind; therefore, if the objects I perceive be only ideas, 
it is impossible that the objects I perceive can exist 
anywhere when I do not perceive them ; and it is im- 
possible that two or more minds can perceive the same 
object. 

To this Berkeley answers, that this objection presses 
no less the opinion of the materialist philosopher than 
his. But the difficulty is, to make his opinion coincide 
with the notions of the vulgar, who are firmly per- 
suaded that the very identical objects which they per- 
ceive continue to exist when they do not perceive them ; 
and who are no less firmly persuaded, that, when ten 
men look at the sun or the moon, they all see the same 
individual object. 

To reconcile this repugnancy, he observes, Dial. 3, 
" That if the term same be taken in the vulgar accepta- 
tion, it is certain, (and not at all repugnant to the prin- 
ciples he maintains,) that different persons may perceive 
the same thing; or the same thing or idea exist in dif- 
ferent minds. Words are of arbitrary imposition ; and 
since men are used to apply the word same where no 
distinction or variety is perceived, and he does not pre- 
tend to alter their perceptions, it follows, that, as men 
have said before, Several saw the same thing, so they 
may, upon like occasions, still continue to use the same 
phrase, without any deviation either from propriety of 
language or the truth of things. But if the term same 
be used in the acceptation of philosophers, who pre- 
tend to an abstract notion of identity, then, accord- 
ing to their sundry definitions of this term, (for it is 
not yet agreed wherein that philosophic identity con- 
sists,) it may or may not be possible for divers persons 
to perceive the same thing ; but whether philosophers 
shall think fit to call a thing the same or no, is, I con- 
ceive, of small importance. Men may dispute about 
identity and diversity, without any real difference in 
their thoughts and opinions, abstracted from names." 

Upon the whole, I apprehend that Berkeley has car- 
ried this attempt to reconcile his system to the vulgar 
10* 



114 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

opinion farther than reason supports him : and he was 
no doubt tempted to do so from a just apprehension 
that, in a controversy of this kind, the common sense 
of mankind is the most formidable antagonist. 

Berkeley has employed much pains and ingenuity to 
show that his system, if received and believed, would 
not be attended with those bad consequences in the 
conduct of life which superficial thinkers may be apt 
to impute to it. His system does not take away, or 
make any alteration in, our pleasures or our pains : our 
sensations, whether agreeable or disagreeable, are the 
same upon his system as upon any other. These are 
real things, and the only things that interest us. They 
are produced in us according to certain laws of nature, 
by which our conduct will be directed in attaining the 
one, and avoiding the other : and it is of no moment 
to us whether they are produced immediately by the 
operation of some powerful intelligent being upon our 
minds, or by the mediation of some inanimate being 
which we call matter. 

The evidence of an All-governing Mind, so far from 
being weakened, seems to appear even in a more strik- 
ing light upon his hypothesis than upon the common 
one. The powers which inanimate matter is supposed 
to possess have always been the stronghold of atheists, 
to which they had recourse in defence of their system. 
This fortress of atheism must be most effectually over- 
turned, if there is no such thing; as matter in the universe. 
In all this the Bishop reasons justly and acutely. But 
there is one uncomfortable consequence of his system 
which he seems not to have attended to, and from 
which it will be found difficult, if at all possible, to 
guard it. 

The consequence I mean is this, — that, although it 
leaves us sufficient evidence of a supreme intelligent 
Mind, it seems to take away all the evidence we have 
of other intelligent beings like ourselves. What I call 
a father, a brother, or a friend, is only a parcel of ideas 
in my own mind ; and being ideas in my mind, they 
cannot possibly have that relation to another mind 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. BERKELEY. 11.5 

which they have to mine, any more than the pain felt 
by me can be the individual pain felt by another. I 
can find no principle in Berkeley's system which affords 
me even probable ground to conclude that there are 
other intelligent beings, like myself, in the relations of 
father, brother, friend, or fellow-citizen. I am left alone, 
as the only creature of God in the universe, in that for- 
lorn state of egoism into which it is said some of the 
disciples of Descartes were brought by his philosophy. 

But I must take notice of another part of Berkeley's 
system, wherein he seems to have deviated from the 
common opinion about ideas, as regards our evidence 
of the existence of other minds. 

Though he sets out in his Principles of Knowledge 
by telling us that it is evident the objects of human 
knowledge are ideas,- and builds his whole system upon 
this principle ; yet, in the progress of it, he finds that 
there are certain objects of human knowledge that are 
not ideas, but things which have a permanent existence. 
The objects of knowledge, of which we have no ideas, 
are our own minds, and their various operations, other 
finite minds, and the Supreme Mind. The reason why 
there can be no ideas of spirits and their operations, 
the author informs us, is this, — that ideas are passive, 
inert, unthinking beings ; they cannot, therefore, be the 
image or likeness of things that have thought, and will, 
and active power ; we have notions of minds, and of 
their operations, but not ideas. We know what we 
mean by thinking, willing, and perceiving; we can 
reason about beings endowed with those powers, but 
we have no ideas of them. A spirit or mind is the 
only substance or support wherein the unthinking be- 
ings or ideas can exist; but that this substance which 
supports or perceives ideas should itself be an idea, or 
like an idea, is evidently absurd. 

Berkeley foresaw that this might give rise to an ob- 
jection to his system, and puts it in the mouth of 
Hylas, in the following words (Dial. 3) : — " If you can 
conceive the mind of God, without having an idea of 
it, why may not I be allowed to conceive the existence 



116 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

of matter, notwithstanding that I have no idea of it ? " 
The answer of Philonous is, — " You neither perceive 
matter objectively, as you do an inactive being or idea, 
nor know it, as you do yourself, by a reflex act, neither 
do you immediately apprehend it by similitude of the 
one or the other, nor yet collect it by reasoning from that 
which you know immediately. All which makes the 
case of matter widely different from that of the Deity." 

Though Hylas declares himself satisfied with this 
answer, I confess I am not ; because, if I may trust the 
faculties that God has given me, I do perceive matter 
objectively; that is, something which is extended and 
solid, which may be measured and weighed, is the im- 
mediate object of my touch and sight. And this object 
I take to be matter, and not an idea. And though I 
have been taught by philosophers that what I immedi- 
ately touch is an idea, and not matter, yet I have never 
been able to discover this by the most accurate atten- 
tion to my own perceptions. 

Of all the opinions that have ever been advanced by 
philosophers, this of Bishop Berkeley, that there is no 
material world, seems the strangest and the most apt 
to bring philosophy into ridicule with plain men, who 
are guided by the dictates of nature and common 
sense. And it will not, I apprehend, be deemed im- 
proper to have traced this progeny of the doctrine of 
ideas from its origin, and to have observed its gradual 
progress, till it acquired such strength, that a pious and 
learned bishop had the boldness to usher it into the 
world, as demonstrable from the principles of philos- 
ophy universally received, and as an admirable expe- 
dient for the advancement of knowledge, and for the 
defence of religion.* 



* The TT Whs of George Berkeley, D. D., late Bishop of Cloyne, in Ireland. 
To which is added, An Account of his Life; and several of his Letters to 
Thomas Prior, Esq., Dean Gervais, Mr. Pope, §~c. (3 vols., 8vo. London, 
1820). Some additional particulars respecting him are given under his 
name in Kippis's edition of the Biographia Britannica. Eschenbach pub- 
lished (in 8vo, Rostock, 1756) a German translation of the principal works 
written to disprove the existence of the material world (including Berke- 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. COLLIER. 117 

We ought not, in this historical sketch, to omit an 
author of far inferior name, Arthur Collier, rector of 
Langford Magna, near Sarum. He published a book 
in 1713, which he calls Clavis Universalis ; or, a New 
Inquiry after Truth ; being a Demonstration of the Non- 
existence or Impossibility of an External World. His 
arguments are the same in substance with Berkeley's; 
and he appears to understand the whole strength of his 
cause. Though he is not deficient in metaphysical 
acuteness, his style is disagreeable, being full of con- 
ceits, of new-coined words, scholastic terms, and per- 
plexed sentences. He appears to be well acquainted 
with Descartes, Malebranche, and Norris, as well as with 
Aristotle and the schoolmen ; but, what is very strange, 
it does not appear that he had ever heard of Locke's 
Essay, which had been published twenty-four years, or 
of Berkeley's Principles of Knoivledge, w T hich had been 
published three years. 

He says, he had been ten years firmly convinced of 
the non-existence of an external world, before he ven- 
tured to publish his book. He is far from thinking, as 
Berkeley does, that the vulgar are of his opinion. If 
his book should make any converts to his system, (of 
which he expresses little hope, though he has supported 
it by " nine demonstrations") he takes pains to show 
that his disciples, notwithstanding their opinion, may, 
with the unenlightened, speak of material things in the 
common style. He himself had scruples of conscience 
about this for some time ; and if he had not got over 
them, he must have shut his lips for ever : but he con- 
sidered, that God himself has used this style in speak- 
ing to men in the Holy Scripture, and has thereby 

ley's Dialogues and Collier's Clavis Universalis), with notes and a supple- 
ment in refutation of the same See, also, A Review of Berkeley's Theory 
of Vision, designed to show the Unsoundness of that celebrated Speculation. By 
Samuel Bailey. (8vo, London, 1842.) The Westminster Review, for Oc- 
tober, 1842, contains an earnest vindication of Berkeley. Two very 
ingenious articles on the same subject, and the philosophy of sensation 
generally, may be found in Blackwood's Magazine, in the numbers for June, 
1842, and June, 1843. There is also a valuable paper On the Idealism of 
Berkeley, in Stewart's Philosophical Essays. — Ed. 



118 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

sanctified it to all the faithful ; and that to the pure all 
things are pure. He thinks his opinion may be of 
great use, especially in religion; and applies it, in par- 
ticular, to put an end to the controversy about Christ's 
presence in the sacrament. 

I have taken the liberty to give this short account of 
Collier's book, because I believe it is rare, and little 
known. I have only seen one copy of it, which is in 
the University library of Glasgow* 

IX. Hume's Theory.] Two volumes of the Treatise 
of Human Nature f were published in 1739, and the 
third in 1740. The doctrine contained in this treatise 
was published anew, in a more popular form, in Mr. 
Hume's Philosophical Essays, of which there have been 
various editions. What other authors, from the time 
of Descartes, had called ideas, this author distinguished 
into two kinds, — to wit, impressions and ideas; com- 
prehending under the first all our sensations, passions, 
and emotions ; and under the last, the faint images of 
these, when we remember or imagine them. 

He sets out with this as a principle that needs no 
proof, and of which, therefore, he offers none, — that 



* This work, though of extreme rarity, and long absolutely unknown 
to the philosophers of this country, had excited, from the first, the atten- 
tion of the German metaphysicians A long analysis of it was given in 
the Acta Eruditorum ; it is found quoted by Bilfinger, and other Leibnitz- 
ians, and was subsequently translated into German, with controversial 
notes, by Professor Eschenbach, of Rostock, in his Collection of the Princi- 
pal Writers who deny the Reality of their own Body and of the whole Corporeal 
World [mentioned in the last note]. — H. 

A small edition of the Clavis was published in Edinburgh in 1S36, and 
another in a collection of Metaphysical Tracts, by English Philosophers of the 
Eighteenth Century: prepared for the Press by the late Rev. Samuel Parr, 
D. D. C8vo, London, 1837). The work is now, therefore, easily accessible 
to English readers. We also have Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the 
Rev. Arthur Collier. By Robert Benson. (8vo, London, 1837 ) Collier 
was born at Langford Magna, in the county of Wilts, October 12, 1680, 
and died, as he had been born, in the rectory of that place, which had been 
nearly a century and a quarter in the family. The precise day of his 
death is not known ; but he was buried in Langford church, September 9, 
1732 —Ed 

t The author, David Hume, was born at Edinburgh, April 26, 1711, and 
died in the same city, August 25, 1776. — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. HUME. 119 

all the perceptions of the human mind resolve them- 
selves into these two kinds, impressions and ideas. As 
this proposition is the foundation upon which the whole 
of Mr. Hume's system rests, and from which it is raised 
with great acuteness indeed, and ingenuity, it were to 
be wished that he had told us upon what authority 
this fundamental proposition rests. But we are left to 
guess whether it is held forth as a first principle, which 
has its evidence in itself, or whether it is to be re- 
ceived upon the authority of philosophers. 

Mr. Locke had taught us, that all the immediate 
objects of human knowledge are ideas in the mind. 
Bishop Berkeley, proceeding upon this foundation, 
demonstrated very easily, that there is no material 
world. And he thought, that, for the purposes both 
of philosophy and religion, we should find no loss, but 
great benefit, in the want of it. But the Bishop, as 
became his order, was unwilling to give up the world 
of spirits. He saw very well, that ideas are as unfit 
to represent spirits as they are to represent bodies. 
Perhaps he saw, that, if we perceive only the ideas of 
spirits, we shall find the same difficulty in inferring 
their real existence from the existence of their ideas, as 
we find in inferring the existence of matter from the 
idea of it; and therefore, while he gives up the material 
world in favor of the system of ideas, he gives up one 
half of that system in favor of the world of spirits ; 
and maintains that we can, without ideas, think, and 
speak, and reason intelligibly about spirits, and what 
belongs to them. 

Mr. Hume shows no such partiality in favor of the 
world of spirits. He adopts the theory of ideas in its 
full extent; and, in consequence, shows that there is 
neither matter nor mind in' the universe; nothing but 
impressions and ideas. What we call a body is only 
a bundle of sensations ; and what we call the mind is 
only a bundle of thoughts, passions, and emotions, 
without any subject* 

* Dr. Eeid had said, in another connection, — " The author of the Trea- 



120 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

Some ages hence, it will perhaps be looked upon as 
a curious anecdote, that two philosophers of the eigh- 

tise of Human Nature appears to me to be but a half-skeptic. He has not 
followed his principles so far as they lead him ; but, after having, with 
unparalleled intrepidity and success combated vulgar prejudices, when he 
lias but one blow to strike, bis courage fails him ; he fairly lays down his 
arms, and yields himself a captive to the most common of all vulgar 
prejudices, — I mean, the belief of the existence of his own impressions 
and ideas. I beg, therefore, to have the honor of making an addition to 
the skeptical system, without which I conceive it cannot hang together. 
I affirm, that the belief of the existence of impressions and ideas is as 
little supported by reason, as that of the existence of minds and bodies." 
— Inquiry into the Human Mind, Chap. V. Sect. VII. 

But to this Sir W. Hamilton replies: — "In Eeid's strictures upon 
Hume, he confounds two opposite things. He reproaches that philosopher 
with inconsequence, in holding to ' the belief of the existence of his own 
impressions and ideas.' Now. if, by the existence of impressions and ideas, 
Reid meant their existence as mere phenomena of consciousness, his criti- 
cism is inept; for a disbelief of their existence, as such phenomena, would 
have been a suicidal act in the skeptic. Of consciousness the skeptic can- 
not doubt, because such doubt, being itself an act of consciousness, would 
contradict, and consequently annihilate, itself. If, again, he meant by 
impressions and ideas the hypothesis of representative entities different from 
the mind and its modifications, in that case, the objection is equally in- 
valid. Hume was a skeptic ; that is, he accepted the premises afforded 
him by the dogmatist, and carried these premises to their legitimate conse- 
quences. To blame Hume, therefore, for not having doubted of his bor- 
rowed principles, is to blame the skeptic for not performing a part alto- 
gether inconsistent with his vocation. But, in point of fact, the hypothesis 
of such entities is of no value to the idealist or the skeptic. Impressions 
and ideas, viewed as mental modes, would have answered Hume's purpose 
not a whit worse than impressions and ideas, viewed as objects, but not as 
affections of mind. The most consistent scheme of idealism known in the 
history of philosophy is that of Pichte ; and Fichte's idealism is founded 
on a basis which excludes that crude hypothesis of ideas on which alone 
Reid imagined any doctrine of idealism could possibly be established. 
And is the acknowledged result of the Fichtean dogmatism less a nihilism 
than the skepticism of Hume ? ' The sum total.' says Fiehte, ' is this : — 
There is absolutely nothing permanent, either without me or within me, 
but only an unceasing change. I know absolutely nothing of any exist 
ence, not even of my own. I myself know nothing, and am nothing. 
Images (Bilder) there are : they constitute all that apparently exists, and 
what they know of themselves is after the manner of images ; images that 
pass and vanish without there being aught to witness their transition, — 
that consist, in fact, of the images of images, without significance and with- 
out an aim. I myself am one of these images ; nay, I am not even thus 
much, but only a confused image of images. All reality is converted into 
a marvellous dream, without a life to dream of, and without a mind to 
dream, — into a dream made np only of a dream of itself. Perception is 
a dream ; thought — the source of all the existence and all the reality 
which I imagine to myself of my existence, of my power, of my destina- 
tion — is the dream of that dream.' " — Ed. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. HUME. 121 

teenth century, of very distinguished rank, were led by a 
philosophical hypothesis, the one to disbelieve the exist- 
ence of matter, and the other to disbelieve the existence 
both of matter and of mind. Such an anecdote may 
not be uninstructive, if it prove a warning to philoso- 
phers to beware of hypotheses, especially when they 
lead to conclusions which contradict the principles upon 
which all men of common sense must act in common 
life. 

The Egoists, whom we mentioned before, were left 
far behind by Mr. Hume ; for they believed their own 
existence, and perhaps also the existence of a Deity. 
But Mr. Hume's system does not even leave him a self 
to claim the property of his impressions and ideas. 

A system of consequences, however absurd, acutely 
and justly drawn from a few principles, in very abstract 
matters, is of real utility in science, and may be made 
subservient to real knowledge. This merit Mr. Hume's 
metaphysical writings have in a great degree. 

We had occasion before to observe, that, since the 
time of Descartes, philosophers, in treating of the pow- 
ers of the mind, have in many instances confounded 
things which the common sense of mankind has always 
led them to distinguish, and which have different names 
in all languages. Thus, in the perception of an exter- 
nal object, all languages distinguish three things, the 
mind that perceives, the operation of that mind, which 
is called perception, and the object perceived. Nothing 
appears more evident to a mind untutored by philoso- 
phy, than that these three are distinct things, which, 
though related, ought never to be confounded. The 
structure of all languages supposes this distinction, and 
is built upon it. Philosophers have introduced a fourth 
thing in this process, which they call the idea of the ob- 
ject, and which is supposed to be an image or representa- 
tive of the object, and is said to be the immediate object. 
The vulgar know nothing about this idea ; it is a crea- 
ture of philosophy, introduced to account for, and ex- 
plain, the manner of our perceiving external objects. 

It is pleasant to observe, that while philosophers, for 
11 



122 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

more than a century, have been laboring, by means of 
ideas, to explain perception and the other operation;- of 
the mind, those ideas have by degrees usurped the place 
of perception, object, and even of the mind itself, and 
have supplanted those very things they were brought to 
explain. Descartes reduced all the operations of the 
understanding to perception ; and what can be more 
natural to those who believe that they are only different 
modes of perceiving ideas in our own minds ? Locke 
confounds ideas, sometimes with the perception of an 
external object, sometimes with the external object it- 
self. In Berkeley's system, the idea is the only object, 
and yet is often confounded with the perception of it. 
But in Hume's, the idea or the impression, which is 
only a more lively idea, is mind, perception, and object, 
all in one : so that by the term perception, in Mr. 
Hume's system, we must understand the mind itself, all 
its operations, both of understanding and will, and all 
the objects of these operations. Perception taken in 
this sense he divides into our more lively perceptions, 
which he calls impressions* and the less lively, which 
he calls ideas. 

" We may divide," says Mr. Hume,f " all the percep- 
tions of the human mind into two classes or species, 
which are distinguished by their different degrees of 
force and vivacity. The less lively and forcible are 
commonly denominated thoughts, or ideas. The other 
species want a name in our language, and in most 
others; let us therefore use a little freedom, and call 
them impressions. By the term impressions, then, I 
mean all our more lively perceptions, when we hear, or 

* Mr. Stewart (Elements, Addenda to Vol. I.) seems to think that the 
word impression was first introduced, as a technical term, into the philosophy 
of mind, by Mr. Hume. This is not altogether correct For, besides the 
instances which Mr. Stewart himself adduces of the illustration attempted 
of the phenomena of memory from the analogy of an impress and a trace, 
words corresponding to impression were among the* ancients familiarly ap 
plied to the processes of external perception, imagination, &c, in the Atom- 
istic, the Platonic, the Aristotelian, and the Stoical philosophies ; while 
among modern psychologists (as Descartes and Gassendi), the term was 
likewise in common use. — H. 

t Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sect. II. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. HUME. 123 

see, or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. Ideas are 
the less lively perceptions, of which we are conscious 
when we reflect on any of those sensations or move- 
ments above mentioned." 

When Mr. Hume says, that we may divide all the 
perceptions of the human mind into two classes or species^ 
ivhich are distinguished by their degrees of force and vi- 
vacity, the manner of expression is loose and unphilo- 
sophical. To differ in species is one thing; to differ in 
degree is another. Things which differ in degree only 
must be of the same species. It is a maxim of common 
sense, admitted by all men, that greater and less do not 
make a change of species. The same man may differ 
in the degree of his force and vivacity in the morning 
and at night, in health and in sickness ; but this is so 
far from making him a different species, that it does not 
so much as make him a different individual. To say, 
therefore, that two different classes or species of percep- 
tions are distinguished by the degrees of their force and 
vivacity, is to confound a difference of degree with a 
difference of species, which every man of understanding 
knows how to distinguish. 

Again, we may object, that this author, having given 
the general name of perceptions to all the operations of 
the mind, and distinguished them into two classes or 
species, which differ only in degree of force and vivacity, 
tells us, that he gives the name of impressions to all our 
more lively perceptions, — to wit, when we hear, or see, 
or feel, or love, or hate, or desire, or will. There is great 
confusion in this account of the meaning of the word 
impression. When I see, this is an impression. But 
why has not the author told us whether he gives the 
name of impression to the object seen, or to that act of 
my mind by which I see it ? When I see the full moon, 
the full moon is one thing, my perceiving it is another 
thing. Which of these two things does he call an im- 
pression ? We are left to guess this ; nor does all that 
this author writes about impressions clear this point. 
Every thing he says tends to darken it, and to lead 
us to think that the full moon which I see, and my 



124 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

seeing it, are not two things, but one and the same 
thing.* 

The same observation may be applied to every other 
instance the author gives to illustrate the meaning of 
the word impression. " When we hear, when we feel, 
when we love, when we hate, when we desire, when we 
will." In all these acts of the mind, there must be an 
object, which is heard, or felt, or loved, or hated, or de- 
sired, or willed. Thus, for instance, I love my country. 
This, says Mr. Hume, is an impression. But what is 
the impression? Is it my country, or is it the affection 
I bear to it? I ask the philosopher this question ; but 
I find no answer to it. And when I read all that he 
has written on this subject, I find this word impression 
sometimes used to signify an operation of the mind, 
sometimes the object of the operation ; but, for the most 
part, it is a vague and indetermined word that signifies 
both. 

I know not whether it may be considered as an apol- 
ogy for such abuse of words, in an author who under- 
stood the language so well, and used it with so great 
propriety in writing on other subjects, that Mr. Hume's 
system with regard to the mind required a language of 
a different structure from the common, or, if expressed 
in plain English, would have been too shocking to the 
common sense of mankind. To give an instance or 
two of this. If a man receive a present on which he 
puts a high value, if he see and handle it, and put it in 



* This objection is easily answered. The thing (Hume would say) as 
unknown, as unperceived, as beyond the sphere of my consciousness, is to me as 
zero ; to that, therefore, I could not refer. As perceived, as known, it must 
be within the sphere of my consciousness ; but, as philosophers concur in 
maintaining that I can only be conscious of my mind and its contents, the 
object, as perceived, must be either a mode of, or something contained within, 
my mind, and to that internal object, as perceived, I give the name of impres- 
sion. Nor can the act of perception (he would add) be really distinguished 
from the object perceived. Both are only relatives, mutually constituent 
of the same indivisible relation of knowledge ; and to that relation and these 
relatives I give the name of impression, precisely as, in different points of 
view, the term perception is applied to the mind perceiving, to the object 
perceived, and to the act of which these are the inseparable constituents. 
This likewise has reference to what follows. — H. 



THEORIES OF PERCEPTION. HUME. 125 

his pocket, this, says Mr. Hume, is an impression. If 
the man only dream that he received such a present, 
this is an idea. Wherein lies the difference between 
this impression and this idea, — between the dream and 
the reality? They are different classes or species, says 
Mr. Hume. So far all men will agree with him. But 
he adds, that they are distinguished only by different 
degrees of force and vivacity. Here he insinuates a 
tenet of his own, in contradiction to the common sense 
of mankind. Common sense convinces every man, that 
a lively dream is no nearer to a reality than a faint one ; 
and that if a man should dream that he had all the 
wealth of Croesus, it would not put one farthing in his 
pocket. 

Philosophers have also differed very much with re- 
gard to the origin of our ideas, or the sources whence 
they are derived. The Peripatetics held, that all knowl- 
edge is derived originally from the senses ; and this an- 
cient doctrine seems to be revived by some late French 
philosophers, and by Dr. Hartley and Dr. Priestley 
among the British. Descartes maintained, that many 
of our ideas are innate. Locke opposed the doctrine of 
innate ideas with much zeal, and employs the whole 
first book of his Essay against it. But he admits two 
different sources of ideas : the operations of our exter- 
nal senses, which he calls sensation, by which we get 
all our ideas of body, and its attributes ; and reflection 
upon the operations of our minds, by which we get the 
ideas of every thing belonging to the mind. The main 
design of the second book of Locke's Essay is to show 
that all our simple ideas, without exception, are derived 
from the one or the other, or both, of these sources. In 
doing this, the author is led into some paradoxes, al- 
though, in general, he is not fond of paradoxes ; and 
had he foreseen all the consequences that may be drawn 
from his account of the origin of our ideas, he would 
probably have examined it more carefully. 

Mr. Hume adopts Locke's account of the origin of 
our ideas, and from thai principle infers, that we have 
no idea of substance corporeal or spiritual, no idea of 
11* 



126 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

power, no other idea of a cause than that it is something 
antecedent, and constantly conjoined to that which we 
call its effect ; and, in a word, that we can have no idea 
of any thing but our sensations, and the operations of 
mind we are conscious of. 

This author leaves no power to the mind in framing 
its ideas and impressions ; and no wonder, since he 
holds that we have no idea of power, and that the mind is 
nothing but the succession of impressions and ideas of 
which we are intimately conscious. He thinks, there- 
fore, that our impressions arise from unknown causes, 
and that the impressions are the causes of their corre- 
sponding ideas. By this he means no more than that 
they always go before the ideas ; for this is all that is 
necessary to constitute the relation of cause and effect. 

As to the order and succession of our ideas, he holds 
it to be determined by three laws of attraction or asso- 
ciation, which he takes to be original properties of the 
ideas, by which they attract, as it were, or associate 
themselves with other ideas, which either resemble 
them, or which have been contiguous to them in time 
and place, or to which they have the relations of cause 
and effect. We may here observe, by the way, that the 
last of these three laws seems to be included in the 
second, since causation, according to him, implies no 
more than contiguity in time and place. 

It is not my design at present to show how Mr. 
Hume, upon the principles he has borrowed from Locke 
and Berkeley, has, with great acuteness, reared a sys- 
tem of absolute skepticism, which leaves no rational 
ground to believe any one proposition rather than its 
contrary : my intention in this place being only to give 
a detail of the sentiments of philosophers concerning 
ideas since they became an object of speculation, and 
concerning the manner of our perceiving external ob- 
jects by their means.* 

* We have a full, authentic, and interesting Life and Correspondence of 
David Hume. By John Hill Burton. (2 vols., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1846.) 
There is also an excellent edition of The Philosophical Works of David 
Hume (4 vols., 8vo, Edinburgh, 1826). Some interesting notices are given 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 127 

CHAPTER VI. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE COMMON THEORY OE IDEAS. 

I. Statement of the Question.] After so long a detail 
of the sentiments of philosophers, ancient and modern, 
concerning ideas, it may seem presumptuous to call in 
question their existence. But no philosophical opinion, 
however ancient, however generally received, ought to 
rest upon authority. There is no presumption in re- 
quiring evidence for it, or in regulating our belief by 
the evidence we can find. 

To prevent mistakes, the reader must again be re- 
minded, that if by ideas are meant only the acts or 
operations of our minds in perceiving, remembering, or 
imagining objects, I am far from calling in question 
the existence of those acts. We are conscious of them 
every day and every hour of life ; and I believe no man 
of a sound mind ever doubted of the real existence of 
the operations of mind, of which he is conscious. Nor 
is it to be doubted, that, by the faculties which God 
has given us, we can conceive things that are absent, 
as well as perceive those that are within the reach of 
our senses; and that such conceptions may be more or 
less distinct, and more or less lively and strong. We 
have reason to ascribe to the all-knowing and all- 
perfect Being distinct conceptions of all things existent 
and possible, and of all their relations ; and if these 
conceptions are called his eternal ideas, there ought to 
be no dispute among philosophers about a word. The 
ideas, of whose existence I require the proof, are not 
the operations of any mind, but supposed objects of 



of Hume and his philosophy by Stewart, in his Dissertation, Part II. Sect. 
VIII. Jacobi's David Hume, uber den Glauben, oder Idealismus and Iiealis- 
mus (8vo, Breslau, 178"). Kant's Prolegomena ; which has been translated, 
professedly, into English by Richardson (8vo, London, 1819). 

For a statement of Sir W. Hamilton's theory of perception, see Appen- 
dix. — Ed. 



128 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

those operations. They are not perception, remem- 
brance, or conception, but things that are said to be 
perceived, or remembered, or imagined. 

Nor do I dispute the existence of what the vulgar 
call the objects of perception. These, by all who ac- 
knowledge their existence, are called real things, not 
ideas. But philosophers maintain, that, besides these, 
there are immediate objects of perception in the mind 
itself: that, for instance, we do not see the sun imme- 
diately, but an idea, or, as Mr. Hume calls it, an im- 
pression, in our own minds. This idea is said to be 
the image, the resemblance, the representative of the 
sun, if there be a sun. It is from the existence of the 
idea that we must infer the existence of the sun. But 
the idea being immediately perceived, there can be no 
doubt, as philosophers think, of its existence. 

In like manner, when I remember or when I imagine 
any thing, all men acknowledge that there must be 
something that is remembered, or that is imagined; 
that is, some object of those operations. The object 
remembered must be something that did exist in time 
past. The object imagined may be something that 
never existed. But, say the philosophers, besides these 
objects which all men acknowledge, there is a more im- 
mediate object which really exists in the mind at the 
same time we remember or imagine. This object is an 
idea or image of the thing remembered or imagined. 

II. The Common Tlieory of Ideas opposed, by the 
Common Sense of Mankind.] The first reflection I 
would make on this philosophical opinion is, that it is 
directly contrary to the universal sense of men who have 
not been instructed in philosophy. 

There is the less need of any further proof of this, 
that it is very amply acknowledged by Mr. Hume, in 
his Essay on the Academical or Skeptical Philosophy* 
" It seems evident," says he, " that men are carried by 
a natural instinct, or prepossession, to repose faith in 

* Inquiry concerning Human Understanding, Sect. XII. Part I. 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 129 

their senses ; and that without any reasoning, or even 
almost before the use of reason, we always suppose an 
external universe, which depends not on our perception, 
but would exist though we and every sensible creature 
were absent or annihilated. Even the animal creation 
are governed by a like opinion, and preserve this belief 
of external objects in ail their thoughts, designs, and 
actions. 

" It seems also evident, that, when men follow this 
blind and powerful instinct of nature, they always sup- 
pose the very images presented by the senses to be the 
external objects, and never entertain any suspicion, that 
the. one are nothing but representations of the other. 
This very table which we see white, and feel hard, is 
believed to exist independent of our perception, and to 
be something external to the mind which perceives it. 
Our presence bestows not being upon it; our absence 
annihilates it not : it preserves its existence uniform 
and entire, independent of the situation of intelligent 
beings who perceive or contemplate it. 

" But this universal and primary notion of all men 
is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which 
teaches us, that nothing can ever be present to the 
mind but an image or perception ; and that the senses 
are only the inlets through which these images are re- 
ceived, without being ever able to produce any imme- 
diate intercourse between the mind and the object." 

It is therefore acknowledged by this philosopher to 
be a natural instinct or prepossession, a universal and 
primary opinion of all men, a primary instinct of na- 
ture, that the objects which we immediately perceive 
by our senses are not images in our minds, but exter- 
nal objects, and that their existence is independent of 
us and our perception. 

In this acknowledgment, Mr. Hume, indeed, seems 
to me more generous, and even more ingenuous, than 
Bishop Berkeley, who would persuade us, that his 
opinion does not oppose the vulgar opinion, but only 
that of the philosophers ; and that the external exist- 
ence of a material world is a philosophical hypothesis, 



130 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

and not the natural dictate of our perceptive powers. 
The Bishop shows a timidity of engaging such an 
adversary as a primary and universal opinion of all 
men. He is rather fond to court its patronage. But 
the philosopher intrepidly gives a defiance to this an- 
tagonist, and seems to glory in a conflict that is worthy 
of his arm. 

" Optat aprum aut fulvum descendere monte leonem." 

After all, I suspect that a philosopher who wages 
war with this adversary will find himself in the same 
condition as a mathematician who should undertake to 
demonstrate that there is no truth in the axioms of 
mathematics. 

III. The Common Theory of Ideas unsupported by 
Evidence.] A, second reflection upon this subject is, 
that the authors who have treated of ideas have generally 
taken their existence for granted, as a thing that could 
not be called in question; and such arguments as they 
have, mentioned incidentally, in order to prove it, seem 
too weak to support the conclusion. 

Mr. Norris is the only author I have met with, who 
professedly puts the question, whether material things 
can be perceived by us immediately. He has offered 
four arguments to show that they cannot. First, " Ma- 
terial objects are without the mind, and therefore there 
can be no union between the object and the percip- 
ient." Answer, This argument is lame, until it is 
shown to be necessary that in perception there should 
be a union between the object and the percipient. Sec- 
ond, " Material objects are disproportioned to the mind, 
and removed from it by the whole diameter of being." 
This argument I cannot answer, because I do not un- 
derstand it.* Third, " Because, if material objects were 

* This confession would, of itself, prove how superficially Reid was 
versed in the literature of philosophy Norris's second argument is only 
the statement of a principle generally assumed by philosophers, — that 
the relation of knowledge infers a correspondence of nature between the 
subject knowing and the object known. This principle has, perhaps, ex- 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 131 

immediate objects of perception, there could be no 
physical science ; things necessary and immutable being 
the only object of science." Answer, Although things 

erted a more extensive influence on speculation than any other ; and yet 
it has not been proved, — nay, is contradicted by the evidence of con- 
sciousness itself. To trace the influence of this assumption would be, in 
fact, in a certain sort, to write the history of philosophy ; for, though this 
influence has never yet been historically developed, it would be easy to 
show that the belief, explicit or implicit, that what knows and what is im 
mediately known must be of an analogous nature, lies at the root of almost 
every theory of cognition, from the very earliest to the very latest specu- 
lations. 

In the more ancient philosophy of Greece, three philosophers (Anaxag- 
oras, Heraclitus, and Alcmaaon) are found, who professed the opposite doc- 
trine, — that the condition of knowledge lies in the contrariety, in the natu- 
ral antithesis, of subject and object Aristotle, likewise, in his treatise On 
the Soul, expressly condemns the prevalent opinion, that the similar is only 
cognizable by the similar; but, in his Nicomachean Ethics, he reverts to the 
doctrine which, in the former work, he had rejected. With these excep- 
tions, no principle, since the time of Empedocles, by whom it seems first 
to have been explicitly announced, has been more universally received 
than this, — that the relation of knowledge infers an unalogy of existence. 
This analogy may be of two degrees. What knows and what is known 
may be either similar or the same ; and if the principle itself be admitted, 
the latter alternative is the more philosophical. 

Without entering on details, I may here notice some of the more re- 
markable results of this principle, in both its degrees. The general prin- 
ciple, not, indeed, exclusively, but mainly, determined the admission of a 
representative perception, by disallowing the possibility of any conscious- 
ness, or immediate knowledge, of matter by a nature so different from it 
as mind ; and, in its two degrees, it determined the various hypotheses by 
which it was attempted to explain the possibility of a representative or 
mediate perception of the external world. To this principle, in its lower 
potence, — that what knows must be similar in nature to what is immedi- 
ately known, — we owe the intentional species of the Aristotelians, and the 
ideas of Malebranche and Berkeley. From this principle, in its higher 
potence, — that what knows must be identical in nature with what is im- 
mediately known, — there flow the gnostic reasons of the Platonists, the 
preexisting forms or species of Theophrastus and Themistius, of Adclandus 
and Avicenna, the (mental) ideas of Descartes and Arnauld, the represen- 
tations, sensual ideas, &c. of Leibnitz and Wolf, the phenomena of Kant, the 
states of Brown, and (shall we say?) the vacillating doctrine of percep- 
tion held by Reid himself. Mediately, this principle was the origin of 
many other famous theories : — of the hierarchical gradation of souls or 
faculties of the Aristotelians ; of the vehicular media of the Platonists 
of the hypotheses of a common intellect of Alexander, Themistius. Aver 
roes, Cajetanus, and Zabarella; of the vision in the Deity of Malebranche , 
and of the Cartesian and Leihnitzian doctrines of assistance and preestab- 
lished harmony. Finally, to this principle is to be ascribed the refusal of 
the evidence of consciousness to the primary fact, the duality of its per- 
ception ; and the unitarian schemes of absolute identity, materialism, and 
idealism are the results. — H. 



132 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

necessary and immutable be not the immediate objects 
of perception, they may be immediate objects of other 
powers of the mind. Fourth, " If material things were 
perceived by themselves, they would be a true light to 
our minds, as being the intelligible form of our under- 
standings, and consequently perfective of them, and 
indeed superior to them." If I comprehend any thing 
of this mysterious argument, it follows from it, that 
the Deity perceives nothing at all, because nothing can 
be superior to his understanding, or perfective of it. 

There is an argument which is hinted at by Male- 
branche, and by several other authors, which deserves 
to be more seriously considered. As I find it most 
clearly expressed and most fully urged by Dr. Samuel 
Clarke, I shall give it in his words, in his second reply 
to Leibnitz, § 4 : — " The soul, without being present to 
the images of the things perceived, could not possibly 
perceive them. A living substance can only there per- 
ceive where it is present, either to the things them- 
selves, (as the omnipresent God is to the whole uni- 
verse,) or to the images of things, as the soul is in its 
proper sensorium." 

That nothing can act immediately where it is not, I 
think, must be admitted; for I agree with Sir Isaac 
Newton, that power without substance is inconceivable. 
It is a consequence of this, that nothing can be acted 
upon immediately where the agent is not present. Let 
this, therefore, be granted. To make the reasoning 
conclusive, it is further necessary, that, when we per- 
ceive objects, either they act upon us, or we act upon 
them. This does not appear self-evident, nor have I 
ever met with any proof of it. I shall briefly offer the 
reasons why I think it ought not to be admitted. 

When we say that one being acts upon another, we 
mean that some power or force is exerted by the agent, 
which produces, or has a tendency to produce, a change 
in the thing acted upon. If this be the meaning of the 
phrase, as I conceive it is, there appears no reason for 
asserting, that, in perception, either the object acts upon 
the mind, or the mind upon the object. 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 133 

An object, in being perceived, does not act at all. I 
perceive the walls of the room where I sit; but they 
are perfectly inactive, and therefore act not upon the 
mind. To be perceived is what logicians call an exter- 
nal denomination, which implies neither action nor quality 
in the object perceived. Nor could men ever have gone 
into this notion, that perception is owing to some ac- 
tion of the object upon the mind, were it not that we 
are so prone to form our notions of the mind from 
some similitude we conceive between it ,and body. 
Thought in the mind is conceived to have some analogy 
to motion in a body ; and as a body is put in motion 
by being acted upon by some other body, so we are apt 
to think the mind is made to perceive by some impulse 
it receives from the object. But reasonings drawn 
from such analogies ought never to be trusted. They 
are, indeed, the cause of most of our errors with regard 
to the mind. And we might as well conclude, that 
minds may be measured by feet and inches, or weighed 
by ounces and drams, because bodies have those prop- 
erties.* 

I see as little reason, in the second place, to believe 
that in perception the mind acts upon the object. To 
perceive an object is one thing; to act upon it is an- 
other. Nor is the last at all included in the first. To 

* This reasoning, which is not original with Reid, (see Note S,) is not 
clearly or precisely expressed. In asserting that " an object, in being per- 
ceived, does not act at all," our author cannot mean that it does not act 
upon the organ of sense ; for this would not only be absurd in itself, but 
in contradiction to his own doctrine, — C: it being," he says, "a law of our 
nature that we perceive not external objects unless certain impressions be 
made on the nerves and brain." The assertion, — "I perceive the walls of 
the room where I sit, but they are perfectly inactive, and therefore act not 
upon the mind," is equally incorrect in statement. The walls of the room, 
strictly so called, assuredly do not act on the mind, or on the eye ; but the 
walls of the room, in this sense, are, in fact, no object of (visual) percep- 
tion at all. What we see in this instance, and what we loosely call the 
walls of the room, is only the light reflected from their surface in its relation 
to the organ of sight, i. e. color; but it cannot be affirmed that the rays of 
light do not act on and affect the retina, optic nerve, and brain. What 
Aristotle distinguished as the concomitants of sensation — as extension, 
motion, position, &c. — are, indeed, perceived without any relative passion 
of the sense. But, whatever may be Reid's meaning, it is, at best, vague 
and inexplicit. — H. 

12 



134 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

say, that I act upon the wall by looking at it, is an 
abuse of language, and has no meaning. Logicians 
distinguish two kinds of operations of mind ; the first 
kind produces no effect without the mind ; the last does. 
The first they call immanent acts ; the second transitive. 
All intellectual operations belong to the first class ; they 
produce no effect upon any external object. But, with- 
out having recourse to logical distinctions, every man 
of common sense knows, that to think of an object and 
to act upon it are very different things. 

As we have, therefore, no evidence that, in percep- 
tion, the mind acts upon the object, or the object upon 
the mind, but strong reasons to the contrary, Dr. 
Clarke's argument against our perceiving external ob- 
jects immediately, falls to the ground. 

This notion, that, in perception, the object must be 
contiguous to the percipient, seems, with many other 
prejudices, to be borrowed from analogy. In all the 
external senses, there must, as has been before ob- 
served, be some impression made upon the organ of 
sense by the object, or by something coming from the 
object. An impression supposes contiguity. Hence 
we are led by analogy to conceive something similar in 
the operations of the mind. Many philosophers resolve 
almost every operation of mind into impressions and 
feelings, words manifestly borrowed from the sense of 
touch. And it is very natural to conceive contiguity 
necessary between that which makes the impression 
and that which receives it, between that which feels 
and that which is felt. And though no philosopher will 
now pretend to justify such analogical reasoning as 
this, yet it has a powerful influence upon the judgment, 
while we contemplate the operations of our minds only 
as they appear through the deceitful medium of such 
analogical notions and expressions* 

* It is self-evident, that, if a thing fs to be an object immediately known, 
it must be known as it exists. Now a body must exist in some definite 
part of space, — in a certain place; it cannot, therefore, be immediately 
known as existing, except it be known in its place. But this supposes the 
mind to be immediately present to it in space. — H. 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 135 

IV. Hume's Argument stated and refuted.] There 
remains only one other argument that I have been able 
to find urged against our perceiving external objects 
immediately. It is proposed by Mr. Hume, who, in 
the essay already quoted, after acknowledging that it 
is a universal and primary opinion of all men that we 
perceive external objects immediately, subjoins what 
follows : — 

" But this universal and primary opinion of all men 
is soon destroyed by the slightest philosophy, which 
teaches us that nothing can ever be present to the 
mind but an image or perception ; and that the senses 
are only the inlets through which these images are re- 
ceived, without being ever able to produce any imme- 
diate intercourse between the mind and the object. 
The table which we see seems to diminish as we re- 
move farther from it ; but the real table, which exists 
independent of us, suffers no alteration. It was, there- 
fore, nothing but its image which was present to the 
mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason ; and 
no man who reflects ever doubted that the existences 
which we consider, when we say this house, and that 
tree, are nothing but perceptions in the mind, and fleet- 
ing copies and representations of other existences which 
remain uniform and independent. So far, then, we are 
necessitated by reasoning to depart from the primary 
instincts of nature, and to embrace a new system with 
regard to the evidence of our senses." 

We have here a remarkable conflict between two 
contradictory opinions, wherein all mankind are en- 
gaged. On the one side stand all the vulgar, who are 
unpractised in philosophical researches, and guided by 
the uncorrupted primary instincts of nature. On the 
other side stand all the philosophers, ancient and mod- 
ern, — every man without exception who reflects. In 
this division, to my great humiliation, I find myself 
classed with the vulgar. 

The passage now quoted is all I have found in Mr. 
Hume's writings upon this point; and, indeed, there is 
more reasoning in it than I have found in any other 
author ; I shall therefore examine it minutely. 



136 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

First, he tells us, that " this universal and primary 
opinion of all men is soon destroyed by the slightest 
philosophy, which teaches us that nothing can ever be 
present to the mind but an image or perception." 

The phrase of being present to the mind has some 
obscurity; but I conceive he means being an immediate 
object of thought, — an immediate object, for instance, 
of perception, of memory, or of imagination. If this 
be the meaning (and it is the only pertinent one I can 
think of), there is no more in this passage than an as- 
sertion of the proposition to be proved, and an asser- 
tion that philosophy teaches it. If this be so, I beg 
leave to dissent from philosophy till she gives me rea- 
son for what she teaches. For though common sense 
and my external senses demand my assent to their dic- 
tates upon their own authority, yet philosophy is not 
entitled to this privilege. But that I may not dissent 
from so grave a personage without giving a reason, I 
give this as the reason of my dissent. I see the sun 
when he shines ; I remember the battle of Culloden ; 
and neither of these objects is an image or perception. 

He tells us, in the next place, " That the senses are 
only the inlets through which these images are re- 
ceived." 

Mr. Hume surely did not seriously believe that an 
image of sound is let in by the ear, an image of smell 
by the nose, an image of hardness and softness, of solid- 
ity and resistance, by the touch. For, besides the ab- 
surdity of the thing, which has often been shown, Mr. 
Hume and all modern philosophers maintain that the 
images which are the immediate objects of perception 
have no existence when they are not perceived ; where- 
as, if they were let in by the senses, they must be be- 
fore they are perceived, and have a separate existence. 

Hitherto I see nothing that can be called an argu- 
ment. Perhaps it was intended only for illustration. 
The argument, the only argument, follows : — 

" The table which we see seems to diminish as we 
remove farther from it ; but the real table, which exists 
independent of us, suffers no alteration. It was, there- 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 137 

fore, nothing but its image which was presented to the 
mind. These are the obvious dictates of reason." 

To judge of the strength of this argument, it is 
necessary to attend to a distinction which is familiar to 
those who are conversant with the mathematical sci- 
ences ; I mean the distinction between real and apparent 
magnitude. The real magnitude of a line is measured 
by some known measure of length, as inches, feet, or 
miles : the real magnitude of a surface or solid, by 
known measures of surface or of capacity. This mag- 
nitude is an object of touch only, and not of sight; 
nor could we even have had any conception of it, with- 
out the sense of touch ; and Bishop Berkeley, on that 
account, calls it tangible magnitude* Apparent magni- 
tude is measured by the angle which an object subtends 
at the eye. Supposing two right lines drawn from the 
eye to the extremities of the object, making an angle 
of which the object is the subtense, the apparent mag- 
nitude is measured by this angle. This apparent mag- 
nitude is an object of sight, and not of touch. Bishop 
Berkeley calls it visible magnitude. 

If it is asked, What is the apparent magnitude of 
the sun's diameter ? the answer is, that it is about 
thirty-one minutes of a degree. But if it is asked, 
"What is the real magnitude of the sun's diameter ? the 
answer must be, So many thousand miles, or so many 
diameters of the earth. From which it is evident, that 
real magnitude and apparent magnitude are things of 
a different nature, though the name of magnitude is 



* The doctrine of Reid — that real magnitude or extension is the object 
of touch and of touch alone — is altogether untenable. For, in the first 
place, magnitude appears greater or less in proportion to the different size 
of the tactile organ in different subjects ; thus, an apple is larger to the 
hand of a child than to the hand of an adult. Touch, therefore, can, at 
best, afford a knowledge of the relation of magnitudes in proportion to the 
organ of this or that individual. But, in the second place, even in the 
same individual, the same object appears greater or less, according as it is 
touched by one part of the body or by another. On this subject, see 
Weber's Annotations de Pulsu, Resorptione, Auditu, et Tactu. Leipsic, 
1834. — H. 

Compare Bailey's Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, Chap. JJI. — 
Ed. 

12* 



138 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

given to both. The first has three dimensions, the last 
only two. The first is measured by a line, the last by 
an angle. 

From what has been said, it is evident that the real 
magnitude of a body must continue unchanged while 
the body is unchanged. This we grant. But is it like- 
wise evident that the apparent magnitude must con- 
tinue the same while the body is unchanged ? So far 
otherwise, that every man who knows any thing of 
mathematics can easily demonstrate, that the same 
individual object, remaining in the same place, and un- 
changed, must necessarily vary in its apparent magni- 
tude, according as the point from which it is seen is 
more or less distant ; and that its apparent length or 
breadth will be nearly in a reciprocal proportion to the 
distance of the spectator. This is as certain as the 
principles of geometry.* 

We must likewise attend to this, that though the real 
magnitude of a body is not originally an object of 
sight, but of touch, yet we learn by experience to judge 
of the real magnitude in many cases by sight. We 
learn by experience to judge of the distance of a body 
from the eye, within certain limits ; and from its dis- 
tance and apparent magnitude taken together, we learn 
to judge of its real magnitude. And this kind of 
judgment, by being repeated every hour, and almost 
every minute, of our lives, becomes, when we are grown 
up, so ready and so habitual, that it very much resem- 
bles the original perceptions of our senses, and may not 
improperly be called acquired perception. 

Whether we call it judgment or acquired perception 
is a verbal difference. But it is evident, that, by means 
of it, we often discover by one sense things which are 

* The whole confusion and difficulty in this matter arise from not de- 
termining what is the true object in visual perception. This is not any 
distant thing, but merely the rays of light in immediate relation to the 
organ. We therefore see a different object at every movement, by which 
a different complement of rays is reflected to the eye. The things from 
which these rays are reflected are not, in truth, -perceived at all ; and to 
conceive them as objects of perception is, therefore, erroneous, and produc- 
tive of error. — H. 



REFLECTIONS ON THE THEORY OF IDEAS. 139 

properly and naturally the objects of another. Thus 
I can say without impropriety, I hear a drum, I hear a 
great bell, or I hear a small bell ; though it is certain 
that the figure or size of the sounding body is not 
originally an object of hearing. In like manner, we 
learn by experience how a body of such a real magni- 
tude, and at such a distance, appears to the eye : but 
neither its real magnitude, nor its distance from the 
eye, is properly an object of sight, any more than the 
form of a drum, or the size of a bell, is properly an ob- 
ject of hearing. 

If these things be considered, it will appear that Mr. 
Hume's argument has no force to support his conclu- 
sion, nay, that it leads to a contrary conclusion. The 
argument is this: — The table we see seems to diminish 
as we remove farther from it; that is, its apparent mag- 
nitude is diminished ; but the real table suffers no alter- 
ation, to wit, in its real magnitude ; therefore it is not 
the real table we see. I admit both the premises in 
this syllogism, but I deny the conclusion. The syllo- 
gism has what the logicians call two middle terms : 
apparent magnitude is the middle term in the first pre- 
mise ; real magnitude in the second. Therefore, accord- 
ing to the rules of logic, the conclusion is not justly 
drawn from the premises. But, laying aside the rules of 
logic, let us examine it by the light of common sense. 

Let us suppose, for a moment, that it is the real 
table we see. Must not this real table seem to dimin- 
ish as we remove farther from it ? It is demonstrable 
that it must. How, then, can this apparent diminution 
be an argument that it is not the real table ? When 
that which must happen to the real table, as we remove 
farther from it, does actually happen to the table we 
see, it is absurd to conclude from this that it is not the 
real table we see. It is evident, therefore, that this 
ingenious author has imposed upon himself by con- 
founding real magnitude with apparent magnitude, and 
that his argument is a mere sophism. 

Thus I have considered every argument I have found 
advanced to prove the existence of ideas, or images of 



140 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

external things, in the mind : and if no better arguments 
can be found, I cannot help thinking that the whole 
history of philosophy has never furnished an instance 
of an opinion so unanimously entertained by philoso- 
phers upon so slight grounds. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF SENSATION. 



I. The Names of many of our Sensations Ambiguous.] 
Having finished what I intend, with regard to that act 
of mind which we call the perception of an external ob- 
ject, I proceed to consider another, which, by our con- 
stitution, is conjoined with perception, and not with 
perception only, but with many other acts of our minds ; 
and that is sensation. 

Sensation is a name given by philosophers to an act 
of mind, which may be distinguished from all others by 
this, that it has no object distinct from itself* Pain of 
every kind is an uneasy sensation. When I am pained, 
I cannot say that the pain I feel is one thing, and that 
my feeling it is another thing. They are one and the 
same thing, and cannot be disjoined even in imagina- 
tion. Pain, when it is not felt, has no existence. It 
can be neither greater or less in degree or duration, nor 
any thing else in kind, than it is felt to be. It cannot 
exist by itself, nor in any subject but a sentient being. 
No quality of an inanimate, insentient being can have 
the least resemblance to it. 

Almost all our perceptions have corresponding sensa- 
tions which constantly accompany them, and, on that 



* But sensation, in the language of philosophers, has been generally 
employed to denote the whole process of sensitive cognition, includ- 
ing perception proper and sensation proper. On this distinction, see Note 
D*. — H. 



OF SENSATION PROPER. 141 

account, are very apt to be confounded with them. 
Neither ought we to expect that the sensation and its 
corresponding perception should be distinguished in 
common language, because the purposes of common 
life do not require it. Language is made to serve the 
purposes of ordinary conversation ; and we have no rea- 
son to expect that it should make distinctions that are 
not of common use. Hence it happens, that a quality 
perceived, and the sensation corresponding to that per- 
ception, often go under the same name. 

This makes the names of most of our sensations am- 
biguous, and this ambiguity has very much perplexed 
philosophers. It will be necessary to give some in- 
stances, to illustrate the distinction between our sensa- 
tions and the objects of perception. 

When I smell a rose, there is in this operation both 
sensation and perception. The agreeable odor I feel, 
considered by itself, without relation to any external 
object, is merely a sensation. It affects the mind in a 
certain way ; and this affection of the mind may be 
conceived, without a thought of the rose, or any other 
object. This sensation can be nothing else than it is 
felt to be. Its very essence consists in being felt ; and 
when it is not felt, it is not. There is no difference be- 
tween the sensation and the feeling of it ; they are one 
and the same thing. It is for this reason that we be- 
fore observed, that in sensation there is no object dis? 
tinct from that act of the mind by which it is felt ; and 
this holds true with regard to all sensations. 

Let us next attend to the perception which we have 
in smelling a rose. Perceplion has always an external 
object ; and the object of my perception, in this case, is 
that quality in the rose which I discern by the sense of 
smell. Observing that the agreeable sensation is raised 
when the rose is near, and ceases when it is removed, I 
am led by my nature to conclude some quality to be 
in the rose which is the cause of this sensation. This 
quality in the rose is the object perceived ; and that act 
of my mind by which I have the conviction and belief 
of this quality, is what in this case I call perception. 



142 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

But it is here to be observed, that the sensation I feel, 
and the quality in the rose which I perceive, are both 
called by the same name. The smell of a rose is the 
name given to both : so that this name has two mean- 
ings ; and the distinguishing its different meanings re- 
moves all perplexity, and enables us to give clear and 
distinct answers to questions about which philosophers 
have held much dispute.* 

Thus, if it is asked whether the smell be in the rose, 
or in the mind that feels it, the answer is obvious ; — 
that there are two different things signified by the smell 
of a rose ; one of which is in the mind, and can be in 
nothing but in a sentient being ; the other is truly and 
properly in the rose. The sensation which I feel is in 
my mind. The mind is the sentient being ; and as the 
rose is insentient, there can be no sensation, nor any 
thing resembling sensation, in it. But this sensation 
in my mind is occasioned by a certain quality in the 
rose, which is called by the same name with the sensa- 
tion, not on account of any similitude, but because of 
their constant concomitance/. 

All the names we have for smells, tastes, sounds, and 
for the various degrees of heat and cold, have a like 
ambiguity ; and what has been said of the smell of a 
rose may be applied to them. They signify both a sen- 
sation and a quality perceived by means of that sensa- 
tion. The first is the sign, the last the thing signified. 
As both are conjoined by nature, and as the purposes 
of common life do not require them to be disjoined in 
our thoughts, they are both expressed by the same 
name ; and this ambiguity is to be found in all lan- 
guages, because the reason of it extends to all. 



* In reference to this and the following paragraphs, I may observe, that 
the distinction of subjective and objective qualities, here vaguely attempted, 
had been already precisely accomplished by Aristotle, in his discrimination 
of TradrjTiKal TvoioT^res (qualitates patibiles) and Tradr] (passiones). In re- 
gard to the Cartesian distinction, which is equally precise, but of which 
Eeid is unaware, it will suffice to say that they called color, as a sensation 
in the mind, formal color ; color, as a quality in bodies capable of pro- 
ducing the sensation, primitive or radical color. — H. 



OF SENSATION PROPER. 143 

The same ambiguity is found in the names of such 
diseases as are indicated by a particular painful sensa- 
tion, such as the toothache or the headache. The tooth- 
ache signifies a painful sensation, which can only be in 
a sentient being ; but it signifies also a disorder in the 
body, which has no similitude to a sensation, but is 
naturally connected with it. 

Pressing my hand with force against the table, I feel 
pain, and I feel the table to be hard. The pain is a sen- 
sation of the mind, and there is nothing that resembles 
it in the table. The hardness is in the table, nor is there 
any thing resembling it in the mind. Feeling is applied 
to both, but in a different sense ; being a word common 
to the act of sensation, and to that of perceiving by the 
sense of touch. 

I touch the table gently with my hand, and I feel it 
to be smooth, hard, and cold. These are qualities of 
the table perceived by touch ; but I perceive them by 
means of a sensation which indicates them. This sen- 
sation not being painful, I commonly give no attention 
to it. It carries my thought immediately to the thing 
signified by it, and is itself forgot, as if it had never 
been. But by repeating it, and turning my attention 
to it, and abstracting my thought from the thing signi- 
fied by it, I find it to be merely a sensation, and that it 
has no similitude to the hardness, smoothness, or cold- 
ness of the table which is signified by it. 

It is indeed difficult, at first, to disjoin things in our 
attention which have always been conjoined, and to 
make that an object of reflection which* never was so 
before ; but some pains and practice will overcome this 
difficulty in those who have got the habit of reflecting 
on the operations of their own minds. 

Although the present subject leads us only to con- 
sider the sensations which we have by means of our 
external senses, yet it will serve to illustrate what has 
been said, and I apprehend is of importance in itself, to 
observe, that many operations of mind, to which we 
give one name, and which we always consider as one 
thing, are complex in their nature, and made up of sev- 



144 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

eral more simple ingredients ; and of these ingredients 
sensation very often makes one. Of this we shall give 
some instances. 

The appetite of hunger includes an uneasy sensation, 
and a desire of food. Sensation and desire are different 
acts of mind. The last, from its nature, must have an 
object; the first has no object. These two ingredients 
may always be separated in thought ; perhaps they 
sometimes are, in reality ; but hunger includes both. 

Benevolence towards our fellow-creatures includes an 
agreeable feeling ; but it includes also a desire of the 
happiness of others. The ancients commonly called it 
desire. Many moderns choose rather to call it a feeling. 
Both are right ; and they only err who exclude either 
of the ingredients. Whether these two ingredients are 
necessarily connected is perhaps difficult for us to de- 
termine, there being many necessary connections which 
we do not perceive to be necessary ; but we can dis- 
join them in thought. They are different acts of the 
mind. 

An uneasy feeling, and a desire, are in like manner 
the ingredients of malevolent affections ; such as malice, 
envy, revenge. The passion of fear includes an uneasy 
sensation or feeling, and an opinion of danger ; and 
hope is made up of the contrary ingredients. When 
we hear of a heroic action, the sentiment which it raises 
in our mind is made up of various ingredients. There 
is in it an agreeable feeling, a benevolent affection to 
the person, and a judgment or opinion of his merit. 

If we thus Analyze the various operations of our 
minds, we shall find that many of them which we con- 
sider as perfectly simple, because we have been accus- 
tomed to call them by one name, are compounded of 
more simple ingredients; and that sensation, or feeling, 
which is only a more refined kind of sensation, makes 
one ingredient, not only in the perception of external 
objects, but in most operations of the mind. 

II. Variety and Distribution of our Sensations.'] A 
small degree of reflection may satisfy us, that the num.- 



OF SENSATION PROPER. 145 

ber and variety of our sensations and feelings are pro- 
digious. For, to omit all those which accompany our 
appetites, passions, and affections, our moral sentiments, 
and sentiments of taste, even our external senses furnish 
a great variety of sensations differing in kind, and al- 
most in every kind an endless variety of degrees. Every 
variety we discern, with regard to taste, smell, sound, 
color, heat and cold, and in the tangible qualities of 
bodies, is indicated by a sensation corresponding to it.* 
The most- general and the most important division 
of our sensations and feelings is into the agreeable, the 
disagreeable, and the indifferent. Every thing we call 
pleasure, happiness, or enjoyment, on the one hand, and, 
on the other, every thing we call misery, pain,- or un- 
easiness, is sensation or feeling. For no man can for 
the present be more happy, or more miserable, than he 
feels himself to be. He cannot be deceived with regard 
to the enjoyment or suffering of the present moment. 
But I apprehend, that, besides the sensations that are 
either agreeable or disagreeable, there is still a greater 



* It has been commonly held by philosophers, both in ancient and mod- 
ern times, that the division of the senses into five is altogether inadequate; 
and psychologists, though not at one in regard to the distribution, are now 
generally agreed, that under touch — or feeling in the strictest signification 
of the term — are comprised perceptions which are, at least, as well entitled 
to be opposed in species as those of taste and smell. — H. 

Mill says, — "A sense of something on the skin, and perhaps also on 
the interior parts of the body, taken purely by itself, seems alone the feeling 
of touch.'''' It is " the feeling which we have when something, without being 
seen, comes gently into contact with our skin, in such a way that we can- 
not say whether it is hard or soft, rough or smooth, or what figure it is, or 
of what size." To these he adds as distinct sensations, though commonly 
reckoned under the head of touch, — the sensations of heat and cold, resem- 
bling the ordinary sensations of touch in nothing but this, that the organ 
of them is diffused over the whole body ; sensations of disorganization, or of 
the approach to disorganization, in any part of the body, as in lacerations, 
burnings, internal inflammations, itchings, &c. ; muscular sensations, or those 
feelings which accompany the action of the muscles, necessary to our idea 
of resistance, and manifesting themselves confusedly in a sense of fatigue 
or of restlessness ; and, finally, sensations in the alimentary canal, such as 
hunger, sea-sickness, the exhilarating effects of opium, the sense of wretch- 
edness attending indigestion, and the like. Analysis of the Phenomena of 
the Human Mind, Chap. I. Sect. V. - VIII. Compare Brown's Philosophy 
of the Human Mind, Sect. XXI. -XXIV., and Tissot, Anthropologic, l me 
Partie, Lib. I. Sect. III. § 1. — Ed. 

13 



146 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

number that are indifferent.* To these we give so lit- 
tle attention, that they have no name, and are imme- 
diately forgot, as if they had never been ; and it requires 
attention to the operations of our minds to be convinced 
of their existence. 

For this end, we may observe, that to a good ear 
every human voice is distinguishable from all others. 
Some voices are pleasant, some disagreeable ; but the 
far greater part can be said to be neither the one nor 
the other. The same thing may be said of other sounds, 
and no less of tastes, smells, and colors ; and if we con- 
sider that our senses are in continual exercise while we 
are awake, that some sensation attends every object 
they present' to us, and that familiar objects seldom 
raise any emotion, pleasant or painful, we shall see 
reason, besides the agreeable and disagreeable, to ad- 
mit a third class of sensations, that may be called indif- 
ferent. 

The sensations that are indifferent are far from being 
useless. They serve as signs to distinguish things that 
differ ; and the information we have concerning things 
external comes by their means. Thus, if a man had no 
ear to receive pleasure from the harmony or melody of 
sounds, he would still find the sense of hearing of great 
utility. Though sounds gave him neither pleasure nor 
pain of themselves, they would give him much useful 
information ; and the like may be said of the sensations 
we have by all the other senses. 

As to the sensations and feelings that are agreeable 
or disagreeable, they differ much, not only in degree, 
but in kind and in dignity. Some belong to the animal 
part of our nature, and are common to us with the 
brutes. Others belong to the rational and moral part. 
The first are more properly called sensations, the last 
feeling's. The French word sentiment is common to 
both.f 



* This is a point in dispute among philosophers. — H. 
t Some French philosophers, since Eeid, have attempted the distinction 
of sentiment and sensation. — H. 



OF SENSATION PROPER. 147 

The intention of nature in them is for the most part 
obvious, and well deserving our notice. It has been 
beautifully illustrated by a very elegant French writer, 
in his Theorie des Sentiments Agreables* 

The Author of nature, in the distribution of agreeable 
and painful feelings, has wisely and benevolently con- 
sulted the good of the human species, and has even 
shown us, by the same means, what tenor of conduct 
we ought to hold. For, first, The painful sensations of 
the animal kind are admonitions to avoid what would 
hurt us ; f and the agreeable sensations of this kind in- 

* Levesque de Pouilly. — H. 

t On the uses, or the final cause, of pain, see Sir C Bell's Bridgewater 
Treatise On the Hand, its Mechanism, and Vital Endoivments, as evincing De- 
sign, Chap. VII. With great force and beauty, this author illustrates the 
doctrine, that sensibility to pain is a wise and beneficent provision, evidently 
intended to protect us against more serious harm. Accordingly he shows, 
that, where pain is of use, it is found ; where, from any cause, it would not 
be of use, the part is insensible. Thus, as he says, the skin, by its exqui- 
site sensibility, is made a better safeguard to the delicate textures which are 
contained within " than if our bodies were covered with the hide of the rhi- 
noceros." Quoting from a lecture which he had delivered before the Col- 
lege of Surgeons, he puts the argument in another form: — "Without 
meaning to impute to you inattention or restlessness, I may request you to 
observe how every one occasionally changes his position, and shifts the 
pressure of the weight of his body : were you constrained to retain one po- 
sition during the whole hour, you would rise stiff and lame. The sensibil- 
ity of the skin is here guiding you to that which, if neglected, would be 
followed even by the death of the part." 

" In pursuing the inquiry, we learn with much interest, that, when the 
hones, joints, and all the membranes and ligaments which cover them, are 
exposed, they may be cut, pricked, or even burned, without the patient or 
the animal suffering the slightest pain." The reason is, that the pain is 
not needed, since no such injuries can reach the parts referred to, or never 
without warning being received through the sensibility of the skin. The 
only injuries to which the bones, joints, and sinews are liable, without the 
sensibility of the skin being first excited, are sprains, ruptures, concussions, 
and the like. In such cases, therefore, our doctrine would lead us to ex- 
pect that these inward parts would be sensible to pain, that we might be 
warned, in the only way we could be effectually, of the presence of the 
evil ; and so in fact it is. 

" How consistent, then, and beautiful, is the distribution of this quality 
of life ! The sensibility to pain varies with the function of the part. The 
skin is endowed with sensibility to every possible injurious impression 
which may be made upon it. But had this kind and degree of sensibility 
been made universal, we should have been racked with pain in the common 
motions of the body : the mere weight of one part on another, or the mo- 
tion of the joint, would have been attended with that degree of suffering 
which we experience in using or walking with an inflamed limb. But, on 



148 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

vite us to those actions that are necessary to the preser- 
vation of the individual, or of the kind. Secondly, By 
the same means nature invites us to moderate bodily 
exercise, and admonishes us to avoid idleness and inac- 
tivity on the one hand, and excessive labor and fatigue 
on the other. Thirdly, The moderate exercise of all our 
rational powers gives pleasure. Fourthly, Every species 
of beauty is beheld with pleasure, and every species of 
deformity with disgust ; and we shall find all that we 
call beautiful to be something estimable or useful in 
itself, or a sign of something that is estimable or use- 
ful. Fifthly, The benevolent affections are all accom- 
panied with an agreeable feeling, the malevolent with 
the contrary. And, sixthly, The highest, the noblest, 
and most durable pleasure is that of doing well, and 
acting the part that becomes us ; and the most bitter 
and painful sentiment, the anguish and remorse of a 
guilty conscience. These observations, with regard to 
the economy of nature in the distribution of our pain- 
ful and agreeable sensations and feelings, are illustrated 
by the author last mentioned so elegantly and ju- 
diciously, that I shall not attempt to .say any thing 
upon them after him. 

I shall conclude this chapter by observing, that, as 

the other hand, had the deeper parts possessed no sensibility, we should 
have had no guide in our exertions. They have a sensibility limited to 
the kind of injury which it is possible may reach them, and which teaches 
us what we can do with impunity. 

li To contrast still more strongly the sensibility of the surface with the 
property of internal parts, to show how very different sensibility is in real- 
ity from what is suggested by first experience, and how admirably it is 
varied and accommodated to the functions, we shall add one other fact. 
The brain is insensible, — that part of the brain which, if disturbed or dis- 
eased, takes away consciousness, is as insensible as the leather of our shoe ! 
That the brain may be touched, or a portion cut off, without interrupting 
the patient in the sentence that he is uttering, is a surprising circumstance ! " 
The reason he supposes to be, that the safety of the brain is otherwise pro- 
vided for by its strong osseous integuments, so that sensibility here would 
only have the effect to expose man to superfluous suffering. "Eeason on 
it, however, as we may, the fact is so ; — the brain, through which every 
impression must be conveyed before it is perceived, is it-self insensible. 
This informs us that sensibility is not a necessary attendant on the delicate 
texture of a living part, but that it must have an appropriate organ, and 
that it is an especial provision." — Ed. 



OF SENSATION PROPER. 149 

the confounding our sensations with that perception of 
external objects which is constantly conjoined with 
them has been the occasion of most of the errors and 
false theories of philosophers with regard to the senses, 
so the distinguishing these operations seems to me to 
be the key that leads to a right understanding of both. 

The purposes of life, as was before observed, do not 
require them to be distinguished. It is the philosopher 
alone who has occasion to distinguish them, when he 
would analyze the operation compounded of them. 
But philosophers, as well as the vulgar, have been ac- 
customed to comprehend both sensation and perception 
under one name, and to consider them as one uncom- 
pounded operation. Philosophers, even more than the 
vulgar, have generally given the name of sensation to 
the whole operation of the senses ; and all the notions 
we have of material things have been called ideas of 
sensation. This led Bishop Berkeley to take one ingre- 
dient of a complex operation for the whole ; and having 
clearly discovered the nature of sensation, teking it for 
granted that all that the senses present to the mind 
is sensation, which can have no resemblance to any 
thing material, he concluded that there is no material 
world. 

If the senses furnish us with no materials of thought 
but sensations, his conclusion must be just; for no sen- 
sation can give us the conception of material things, far 
less any argument to prove their existence. But if it 
is true that by our senses we have not only a variety 
of sensations, but likewise a conception and an imme- 
diate natural conviction of external objects, he reasons 
from a false supposition, and his arguments fall to the 
ground.* 

* In his Supplementary Dissertations, Note D*, Sir W. Hamilton says of 
" sensation proper and perception proper, in correlation " : — " In perception 
propei- there is a higher energy of intelligence than in sensation proper. 
For though the latter be the apprehension of an affection of the ego, and 
therefore, in a certain sort, the apprehension of an immaterial quality, still 
it is only the apprehension of the fact of an organic passion ; whereas the 
former, though supposing sensation as its condition, and though only the 
apprehension of the attributes of a material non-ego, is, however, itgelf 

13* 



150 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

OF THE OBJECTS OF PEECEPTION. 

I. (1.) Primary and Secondary Qualities of Body.] 
The objects of perception are the various qualities of 
bodies. Intending to treat of these only in general, 
and chiefly with a view to explain the notions which 
our senses give us of them, I begin with the distinction 
between primary and secondary qualities. These were 
distinguished very early. The Peripatetic system con- 
founded them, and left no difference. The distinction 
was again revived by Descartes and Locke, and a sec- 
ond time abolished by Berkeley and Hume.* If the 

without corporeal passion, and, at the same time, the recognition not 
merely of a fact, but of relations. 

" Sensation proper is the conditio sine qua non of a perception proper of the 
primary qualitfcs. For we are only aware of the existence of our organ- 
ism in being sentient of it, as thus or thus affected ; and are only aware of 
it being the subject of extension, figure, division, motion, &c, in being 
percipient of its affections, as like or as unlike, and as out of, or locally 
externa] to, each other. 

"Every perception proper has a sensation proper as its condition; but 
every sensation has not a perception proper as its conditionate, — unless, 
what I think ought to be done, we view the general consciousness of the 
locality of a sensorial affection as a perception proper. In this case, the 
two apprehensions will be always coexistent. 

" But though the fact of sensation proper and the fact of perception proper 
imply each other, this is all ; for the two cognitions, though coexistent, 
are not proportionally coexistent. On the contrary, although we can only 
take note of, that is, perceive, the special relations of sensations, on the 
hypothesis that these sensations exist; a sensation, in proportion as it 
rises above a low degree of intensity, interferes with the perception of 
its relations, by concentrating consciousness on its absolute affection alone. 
It may accordingly be stated as a general rule, That, above a certain point, 
the stronger the sensation, the weaker the perception ; and the distincter the per- 
ception, the less obtrusive the sensation : in other words, Though perception 
proper and sensation proper exist only as they coexist, in the degree or intensity 
of their existence they are always found in an inverse ratio to each other" — 
Ed. 

* For the history of this distinction, see Sir W. Hamilton's Supplemen- 
tary Dissertations, Note D, § 1. Here, as in many other places, by "the 
Peripatetic system " we must understand the system as held by some of 
the followers of Aristotle, and not as held by himself. "Aristotle," says 
Hamilton, " does not abolish the distinction ; — nay, I am confident of 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 151 

real foundation of this distinction can be pointed out, 
it will enable us to account for the various revolutions 
in the sentiments of philosophers concerning it. 

Every one knows that extension, divisibility, figure, 
motion, solidity, hardness, softness, and fluidity were by- 
Mr. Locke called primary qualities of body ; and that 
sound, color, taste, smell, and heat or cold were called 
secondary qualities. Is there a just foundation for this 
distinction ? Is there any thing common to the primary 
which belongs not to the secondary ? And what is it ? 

I answer, that there appears to me to be a real foun- 
dation for the distinction, and it is this : that our senses 
give us a direct and distinct notion of the primary 
qualities, and inform us what they are in themselves ; 
but of the secondary qualities, our senses give us only 
a relative and obscure notion.* They inform us only, 
that they are qualities that affect us in a certain man- 
ner, that is, produce in us a certain sensation ; but as 
to what they are in themselves, our senses leave us in 
the dark.f 

Every man capable of reflection may easily satisfy 
himself, that he has a perfectly clear and distinct notion 
of extension, divisibility, figure, and motion. The so- 



showing, that, to whatever merit modern philosophers may pretend in this 
analysis, all and each of their observations are to be found, clearly stated, 
in the writings of the Stagirite." He also says of Locke : — " His doctrine 
in regard to the attributes of bodies, in so far as these have power to pro- 
duce sensations and perceptions, or simple ideas, in us, contains absolutely 
nothing new." — Ed. 

* By the expression, <; what they are in themselves" in reference to the 
primary qualities, and of " relative notion" in reference to tke secondary, 
lieid cannot mean that the former are known to us absolutely and in them- 
selves, — that is, out of relation to our cognitive faculties ; for he elsewhere 
admits that all our knowledge is relative. Further, if "our senses give us 
a direct and distinct notion of the primary qualities, and inform us what they 
are in themselves," these qualities, as known, must resemble, or be identical 
with, these qualities as existing. — H. 

t The distinctions of perception and sensation, and of primary and sec- 
ondary qualities, may be reduced to one higher principle. Knowledge is 
partly objective and partly subjective : both these elements arc essential to 
every cognition, but in every cognition they are always in the inverse ratio 
of each other. In perception and the primary qualities, the objective ele- 
ment preponderates ; whereas the subjective element preponderates in sen- 
sation and the secondary qualities. — H. 



152 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

lidity of a body means no more than that it excludes 
other bodies from occupying the same place at the 
same time. Hardness, softness, and fluidity are differ- 
ent degrees of cohesion in the parts of a body. It is 
fluid when it has no sensible cohesion, soft when the 
cohesion is weak, and hard when it is strong. Of the 
cause of this cohesion we are ignorant, but the thing 
itself we understand perfectly, being immediately in- 
formed of it by the sense of touch. It is evident, there- 
fore, that of the primary qualities we have a clear and 
distinct notion ; we know what they are, though we 
may be ignorant of their causes. 

I observe, further, that the notion we have of pri- 
mary qualities is direct, and not relative only. A rel- 
ative notion of a thing is, strictly speaking, no notion 
of a thing at all, but only of some relation which it 
bears to something else. 

Thus gravity sometimes signifies the tendency of 
bodies towards the e*arth ; sometimes it signifies the 
cause of that tendency. When it means the first, I 
have a direct and distinct notion of gravity : I see it, 
and feel it, and know perfectly what it is ; but this ten- 
dency must have a cause. We give the same name to 
the cause ; and that cause has been an object of thought 
and of speculation. Now what notion have we of this 
cause when we think and reason about it ? It is evident 
we think of it as an unknown cause of a known effect. 
This is a relative notion, and it must be obscure, be- 
cause it gives us no conception of what the thing is, 
but of what relation it bears to something else. Every 
relation which a thing unknown bears to something 
that is known may give a relative notion of it; and 
there are many objects of thought, and of discourse, of 
which our faculties can give no better than a relative 
notion. 

Having premised these things to explain what is 
meant by a relative notion, it is evident that our notion 
of primary qualities is not of this kind ; we know what 
they are, and not barely what relation they bear to 
something else. 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 153 

It is otherwise with secondary qualities. If you ask 
me, what is that quality or modification in a rose which 
I call its smell, I am at a loss to answer directly. Up- 
on reflection, I find that I have a distinct notion of the 
sensation which it produces in my mind. But there 
can be nothing like to this sensation in the rose, be- 
cause it is insentient. The quality in the rose is some- 
thing which occasions the sensation in me ; but what 
that something is, I know not. My senses give me no 
information upon this point. The only notion, there- 
fore, my senses give is this, that smell in the rose is an 
unknown quality or modification, which is the cause 
or occasion of a sensation which I know well. The 
relation which this unknown quality bears to the sen- 
sation with which nature has connected it, is all I learn 
from the sense of smelling ; but this is evidently a rel- 
ative notion. The same reasoning will apply to every 
secondary quality. 

Thus I think it appears that there is a real foun- 
dation for the distinction of primary from secondary 
qualities, and. that they are distinguished by this : that 
of the primary we have by our senses a direct and dis- 
tinct notion ; but of the secondary only a relative no- 
tion, which must, because it is only relative, be obscure ; 
they are conceived only as the unknown causes or 
occasions of certain sensations with which we are well 
acquainted. 

II. Remarks on the Distinction between Primary and 
Secondary Qualities.] The account I have given of this 
distinction is founded upon no hypothesis. Whether 
our notions of primary qualities are direct and distinct, 
those of the secondary relative and obscure, is a matter 
of fact, of which every man may have certain knowl- 
edge by attentive reflection upon them. To this reflec- 
tion I appeal, as the proper test of what has been ad- 
vanced, and proceed to make some remarks on the 
subject. 

1. The primary qualities are neither sensations, nor 
are they resemblances of sensations. This appears to 



154 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

me self-evident. I have a clear and distinct notion of 
each of the primary qualities. I have a clear and dis- 
tinct notion of sensation. I can compare the one with 
the other; and when I do so, I am not able to discern 
a resembling feature. Sensation is the act, or the feel- 
ing, (I dispute not which,) of a sentient being. Figure, 
divisibility, solidity, are neither acts nor feelings. Sen- 
sation supposes a sentient being as its subject ; for a 
sensation that is not felt by some sentient being is an 
absurdity. Figure and divisibility suppose a subject 
that is figured and divisible, but not a subject that is 
sentient. 

2. We have no reason to think that the sensations by 
which we have notice of secondary qualities resemble 
any quality of body. The absurdity of this notion has 
been clearly shown by Descartes, Locke, and many 
modern philosophers. It was a tenet of the ancient 
philosophy, and is still by many imputed to the vulgar, 
but only as a vulgar error. It is too evident to need 
proof, that the vibrations of a sounding body do not 
resemble the sensation of sound, nor the effluvia of an 
odorous body the sensation of smell. 

3. The distinctness of our notions of primary qualities 
prevents all questions and disputes about their nature. 
There are no different opinions about the nature of ex- 
tension, figure, or motion, or the nature of any primary 
quality. Their nature is manifest to our senses, and 
cannot be unknown to any man, or mistaken by him, 
though their causes may admit of dispute. 

The primary qualities are the objects of the mathe- 
matical sciences ; and the distinctness of our notions 
of them enables us to reason demonstratively about 
them to a great extent. Their various modifications 
are precisely defined in the imagination, and thereby 
capable of being compared, and their relations deter- 
mined with precision and certainty. 

It is not so with secondary qualities. Their nature, 
not being manifest to the sense, may be a subject of 
dispute. Our feeling informs us that the fire is hot ; 
but it does not inform us what that heat of the fire is. 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 155 

But does it not appear a contradiction to say we know 
that the fire is hot. but we know not what that heat is ? 
I answer, There is the same appearance of contradic- 
tion in many things, that must be granted. We' know 
that wine has an inebriating quality ; but we know not 
what that quality is. It is true, indeed, that, if we had 
not some notion of what is meant by the heat of fire, 
and by an inebriating quality, we could affirm nothing 
of either with understanding. We have a notion of 
both ; but it is only a relative notion. We know that 
they are the causes of certain known effects. 

4. The nature of secondary qualities is a proper sub- 
ject of philosophical disquisition ; and in this philosophy 
has made some progress. It has been discovered, that 
the sensation of smell is occasioned by the effluvia of 
bodies ; that of sound by their vibration. The dispo- 
sition of bodies to reflect a particular kind of light 
occasions the sensation of color. Very curious dis- 
coveries have been made of the nature of heat, and an 
ample field of discovery in these subjects remains. 

5. We may see why the sensations belonging to sec- 
ondary qualities are an object of our attention, while 
those which belong to the primary are not. 

The first are not only signs of the object perceived, 
but they bear a capital part in the notion we form of 
it. We conceive it only as that which occasions such 
a sensation, and therefore cannot reflect upon it with- 
out thinking of the sensation which it occasions : we 
have no other mark whereby to distinguish it. The 
thought of a secondary quality, therefore, always carries 
us back to the sensation which it produces. We give 
the same name to both, and are apt to confound them 
together. But having a clear and distinct conception 
of primary qualities, we have no need when we think 
of them to recall their sensations. When a primary 
quality is perceived, the sensation immediately leads 
our thought to the quality signified by it, and is itself 
forgot. We have no occasion afterwards to reflect 
upon it ; and so we come to be as little acquainted 
with it as if we had never felt it. This is the case 



156 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

with the sensations of all primary qualities, when they 
are not so painful or pleasant as to draw our attention. 

When a man moves his hand rudely against a point- 
ed hard body, he feels pain, and may easily be per- 
suaded that this pain is a sensation, and that there is 
nothing resembling it in the hard body ; at the same 
time he perceives the body to be hard and pointed, and 
he knows that these qualities belong to the body only. 
In this case, it is easy to distinguish what he feels from 
what he perceives. Let him again touch the pointed 
body gently, so as to give him no pain ; and now you 
can hardly persuade him that he feels any thing but 
the figure and hardness of the body ; so difficult it 
is to attend to the sensations belonging to primary 
qualities, when they are neither pleasant nor painful. 
They carry the thought to the external object, and im- 
mediately disappear and are forgot. Nature intended 
them only as signs ; and when they have served that 
purpose, they vanish. 

6. We are now to consider a supposed contradiction 
between the vulgar and the philosophers upon this 
subject. As to the former, it is not to be expected that 
they should make distinctions which have no connec- 
tion with the common affairs of life ; they do not, there- 
fore, distinguish the primary from the secondary qual- 
ities, but speak of both as being equally qualities of the 
external object. Of the primary qualities they have a 
distinct notion, as they are immediately and distinctly 
perceived by the senses ; of the secondary, their notions, 
as I apprehend, are confused and indistinct, rather than 
erroneous. A secondary quality is the unknown cause 
or occasion of a well-known effect; and the same 
name is common to the cause and the effect. Now, to 
distinguish clearly the different ingredients of a com- 
plex notion, and, at the same time, the different mean- 
ings of an ambiguous word, is the work of a philoso- 
pher ; and is not to be expected of the vulgar, when 
their occasions do not require it. 

I grant, therefore, that the notion which the vulgar 
have of secondary qualities is indistinct and inaccu- 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 157 

rate. But there seems to be a contradiction between the 
vulgar and the philosopher upon this subject, and each 
charges the other with a gross absurdity. The vulgar 
say, that fire is hot, and snow cold, and sugar sweet ; 
and that to deny this is a gross absurdity, and contra- 
dicts the testimony of our senses. The philosopher 
says, that heat and cold and sweetness are nothing 
but sensations in our minds ; and it is absurd to con- 
ceive that these sensations are in the fire, or in the 
snow, or in the sugar. 

I believe this contradiction between the vulgar and 
the philosopher is more apparent than real; and that it 
is owing to an abuse of language on the part of the 
philosopher, and to indistinct notions on the part of the 
vulgar. The philosopher says, there is no heat in the 
fire, meaning that the fire has not the sensation of heat. 
His meaning is just; and the vulgar will agree with 
him, as soon as they understand his meaning : but his 
language is improper ; for there is really a quality in 
the fire, of which the proper name is heat; and the 
name of heat is given to this quality, both by philoso- 
phers and by the vulgar, much more frequently than to 
the sensation of heat. This speech of the philosopher, 
therefore, is meant by him in one sense ; it is taken by 
the vulgar in another sense. In the sense in which 
they take it, it is indeed absurd, and so they hold it to 
be. In the sense in which he means it, it is true ; and 
the vulgar, as soon as they are made to understand 
that sense, will acknowledge it to be true. They know 
as well as the philosopher, that the fire does not feel 
heat ; and this is all that he means by saying there is 
no heat in the fire.* 



* On the subject of Primary and Secondary Qualities, compare Stewart, 
Philosophical Essays, Essay II. Chap. II. Sect. II. Royer-Collard, Frag- 
ments, in Jouffroy's (Euvres de Reid, Tome III. p. 426 et seq. Gamier, 
Critique de la Philosophic de Thomas Reid, p. 73 et seq. Remusat, Essais de 
Philosophic, Essai IX. Brown, Philosophy of the Hitman Mind, Lect. XXV. 
Sir W. Hamilton, in his Supplementary/ Dissertations, Note D. 

Hamilton divides the qualities of body or matter into primary, secundo- 
primary, and secondary. 

Starting with the simple datum, body considered as substance occupying 

14 



158 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

III. Other Objects of Perception. (2.) Local Affec- 
tions in our own Bodies.] Besides primary and secon- 
dary qualities of bodies, there are many other immedi- 
ate objects of perception. Without pretending to a 
complete enumeration, I think they mostly fall under 
one or other of the following classes : — First, Certain 
states or conditions of our own bodies. Second, Me- 
chanical powers or forces. Third, Chemical powers. 
Fourth, Medical powers or virtues. Fifth, Vegetable 
and animal powers. 

That we perceive certain disorders in our own bodies 
by means of uneasy sensations, which nature has con- 
joined with them, will not be disputed. Of this kind 
are toothache, headache, gout, and every distemper and 
hurt which we feel. The notions which our sense 
gives of these have a strong analogy to our notions of 
secondary qualities. Both are similarly compounded, 
and may be similarly resolved, and they give light to 
each other. 

In the toothache, for instance, there is, first, a pain- 
space, he deduces a priori, as necessary to the very conception, its primary 
qualities, which are the following : — 1. Extension ; 2. Divisibility ; 3. Size ; 
4. Density, or Rarity; 5. Pigure ; 6. Incompressibility absolute ; 7. Mo- 
bility; 8. Situation. 

The secundo-primary qualities are modifications, but contingent modifica- 
tions, of the primary. They suppose the primary, but the primary do not 
suppose them, and hence they are not conceived by us as necessary proper- 
ties of matter. They are the following, with their various modifications : 
— 1. Gravity; 2. Cohesion; 3. Inertia ; 4. Repulsion. 

The secondary qualities, as manifested to us, are not, in propriety, quali- 
ties of body at all. " As apprehended, they are," he says, " only subjective 
affections, and belong to bodies in so far only as these are supposed fur- 
nished with the powers capable of specifically determining the various 
parts of our nervous apparatus to the peculiar action, or rather passion, of 
which they are susceptible; which determined action or passion is the 
quality of which alone we are immediately cognizant, the external con- 
cause of that internal effect remaining to perception altogether unknown." 
He adds : — " Of the secondary qualities, in this relation, there are various 
kinds ; the variety principally depending on the differences of the different 
parts of our nervous apparatus. Such are the proper sensibles, the idio- 
pathic affections of our several organs of sense, as color, sound, flavor, 
savor, and tactual sensation ; such are the feelings from heat, electricity 
galvanism, &c. ; nor need it be added, such are the muscular and cutaneous 
sensations which accompany the perception of the secundo-primary quali- 
ties. Such, though less directly the result of foreign causes, are titillation, 
sneezing, horripilation, shuddering, the feeling of what is called setting- 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 159 

ful feeling ; and, secondly, a conception and belief of 
some disorder in the tooth, which is believed to be the 
cause of the uneasy feeling. The first of these is a 
sensation, the second is a perception ; * for it includes 
a conception and belief of an external object. But 
these two things, though of different natures, are so 
constantly conjoined in our experience and in our im- 
agination, that we consider them as one. We give the 
same name to both ; for the toothache is the proper 
name of the pain we feel ; and it is the proper name of 
the disorder in the tooth which causes that pain. If it 
should be made a question, whether the toothache be 
in the mind that feels it, or in the tooth that is affected, 
much might be said on both sides, while it is not ob- 
served that the word has two meanings. But a little, 
reflection satisfies us, that the pain is in the mind, and 
the disorder in the tooth. If some philosopher should 
pretend to have made a discovery, that the toothache, 
the gout, the headache, are only sensations in the mind, 
and that it is a vulgar error to conceive that they are 

the-teeth-on-edge, &c, &c ; such, in fine, are all the various sensations of 
bodily pleasure and pain determined by the action of external stimuli." 

To mark the difference between the three classes of qualities, he ob- 
serves : — " The primary, being thought as essential to the notion of body, 
are distinguished from the secundo-primary and secondary as accidental; 
while the primary and secundo-primary, being thought as manifest or con- 
ceivable in their own nature, are distinguished from the secondary as in their 
own nature occult and inconceivable.' 1 '' And again : — " Using the terms 
strictly, the apprehensions of the primary are perceptions, not sensations ; 
of the secondary, sensations, not perceptions ; of the secundo-primary, per- 
ceptions and sensations together." Still further: — "In the apprehension 
of the primary qualities, the mind is primarily and principally active ; it 
feels only as it knows [because it only feels, i. e. is conscious, that it 
knows]. In that of the secondary, the mind is primarily and principally 
passive; it knows only as it feels [because it only knows, i. e. is conscious, 
that it feels]. In that of the secundo-primary, the mind is equally and at 
once active and passive; in one respect it feels as it knows, in another, it 
knows as it feels." To illustrate the last statement he adduces the ex- 
ample of the secundo-primary quality of hardness, a modification of co- 
hesion ; which consists of two parts, — pressure, which is felt in the subject, 
and resistance, which is perceived to belong to the object. — Ed. 

* There is no such " perception," properly so called. The cognition is 
merely an inference from the feeling ; and its object, at least, only some 
hypothetical representation of a really ignotum quid. Here the sub- 
jective element preponderates so greatly as almost to extinguish the 
" e. — H. 



160 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

distempers of the body, he might defend his system in 
the same manner as those who affirm that there is no 
sound nor color nor taste in bodies defend that para- 
dox. But both these systems, like most paradoxes, will 
be found to be only an abuse of words. 

We say that we feel the toothache, not that we per- 
ceive it. On the other hand, we say that we perceive 
the color of a body, not that we feel it. Can any rea- 
son be given for this difference of phraseology ? In 
answer to this question, I apprehend, that, both when 
we feel the toothache and when we see a colored body, 
there is sensation and perception conjoined. But in 
the toothache, the sensation, being very painful, en- 
grosses the attention ; and therefore we speak of it as if 
it were felt only, and not perceived : whereas, in seeing 
a colored body, the sensation is indifferent, and draws 
no attention. The quality in the body which we call 
its color is the only object of attention; and therefore 
we speak of it as if it were perceived, and not felt. 
Though all philosophers agree that in seeing color 
there is sensation, it is not easy to persuade the vulgar, 
that, in seeing a colored body, when the light is not 
too strong, nor the eye inflamed, they have any sensa- 
tion or feeling at all. 

There are some sensations, which, though they are 
very often felt, are never attended to, nor reflected 
upon. We have no conception of them ; and there- 
fore, in language, there is neither any name for them, 
nor any form of speech that supposes their existence. 
Such are the sensations of color, and of all primary 
qualities ; and therefore those qualities are said to be 
perceived, but not to be felt. Taste and smell, and 
heat and cold, have sensations that are often agreeable 
or disagreeable, in such a degree as to draw our atten- 
tion ; and they are sometimes said to be felt, and some- 
times to be perceived. When disorders of the body 
occasion very acute pain, the uneasy sensation en- 
grosses the attention, and they are said to be felt, not 
to be perceived.* 

* As already repeatedly observed, the objective element (perception) and 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 161 

There is another question relating to phraseology, 
which this subject suggests. A man says, he feels pain 
in such a particular part of his body, — in his toe, for 
instance. Now, reason assures us, that pain, being a 
sensation, can only be in the sentient being as its sub- 
ject, that is, in the mind. And though philosophers 
have disputed much about the place of the mind, yet 
none of them ever placed it in the toe.* What shall 
we say, then, in this case? Do our senses really de- 
ceive us, and make us believe a thing which our reason 
determines to be impossible ? I answer, first, that, 
when a man says he has a pain in his toe, he is per- 
fectly understood, both by himself and those who hear 
him. This is all that he intends. He really feels what 
he and all men call a pain in the toe ; and there is no 
deception in the matter. "Whether, therefore, there be 
any impropriety in the phrase or not, is of no conse- 
quence in common life. It answers all the ends of 
speech, both to the speaker and the hearers. 

In all languages, there are phrases which have a dis- 
tinct meaning ; while^ at the same time, there may be 
something in the structure of them that disagrees with 
the analogy of grammar, or with the principles of phi- 
losophy. And the reason is, because language is not 
made either by grammarians or philosophers. Thus 
we speak of feeling pain, as if pain was something dis- 
tinct from the feeling of it. We speak of a pain com- 
ing and going, and removing from one place to another. 
Such phrases are meant by those who use them in a 

the subjective element (feeling, sensation) are always in the inverse ratio of 
each other. This is a law of which Reid and the philosophers were not 
aware. — H. 

* Not in the toe exclusively. But, hoth in ancient and modern times, the 
opinion has been held that the mind has as much a local presence in the 
toe as in the head. The doctrine, indeed, long- generally maintained was, 
that, in relation to the body, the soul is all in the whole, and all in every part. 
On the question of the seat of the soul, which has been marvellously per- 
plexed, I cannot enter. I shall only say, in general, that the first condition 
of the possibility of an immediate, intuitive, or real perception of external 
things, which our consciousness assures that we possess, is the immediate 
connection of the cognitive principle with every part of the corporeal 
organism. — H. 

14* 



162 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

sense that is neither obscure nor false. But the phi- 
losopher puts them into his alembic, reduces them to 
their first, principles, draws out of them a sense that 
was never meant, and so imagines that he has discov- 
ered an error of the vulgar. 

I observe, secondly, that, when we consider the sen- 
sation of pain by itself, without any respect to its cause, 
we cannot say with propriety that the toe is either the 
place or the subject of it. But it ought to be remem- 
bered, that, when we speak of pain in the toe, the sen- 
sation is combined in our thought with the cause of it, 
which really is in the toe. The cause and the effect 
are combined in one complex notion, and the same 
name serves for both. It is the business of the philos- 
opher to analyze this complex notion, and to give dif- 
ferent names to its different ingredients. He gives the 
name of pain to the sensation only, and the name of 
disorder to the unknown cause of it. Then it is evi- 
dent that the disorder only is in the toe, and that it 
would be an error to think that the pain is in it. But 
we ought not to ascribe this error to the vulgar, who 
never made the distinction, and who under the name of 
pain comprehend both the sensation and its cause.* 

Cases sometimes happen, which give occasion even 
to the vulgar to distinguish the painful sensation from 
the disorder which is the cause of it. A man who has 
had his leg cut off, many years after feels pain in a Joe 
of that leg. The toe has now no existence ; and he 
perceives easily, that the toe can neither be the place 
nor the subject of the pain which he feels : yet it is the 
same feeling he used to have from a hurt in the toe ; 
and if he did not know that his leg w T as cut off, it 
would give him the same immediate conviction of some 
hurt or disorder in the toe.f 

* That the pain is where it is felt is, however, the doctrine of common 
sense. We only feel inasmuch as we have a body and a soul ; we only 
feel pain in the toe inasmuch as we have such a member, and inasmuch as 
the mind, or sentient principle, pervades it. We just as much feel in the 
toe as we think in the head. If (but only if) the latter be a vitium subrep- 
tionis, as Kant thinks, so is the former. — H. 

\ This illustration is Descartes's. If correct, it only shows that the con- 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 163 

The same phenomenon may lead the philosopher, in 
all cases, to distinguish sensation from perception. We 
say, that the man had a deceitful feeling, when he felt 
a pain in his toe after the leg was cut off; and we 
have a true meaning in saying so. But, if we will 
speak accurately, our .sensations cannot be deceitful; 
they must be what we feel them to be, and can be 
nothing else. Where, then, lies the deceit? I answer, 
it lies not in the sensation, which is real, but in the 
seeming perception he had of a disorder in his toe. 
This perception, which nature had conjoined with the 
sensation, was in this instance fallacious. 

The same reasoning may be applied to every phe- 
nomenon that can, with propriety, be called a decep- 
tion of sense. As when one who has the jaundice 
sees a body yellow which is really white ; or when 
a man sees an object double, because his eyes are 
not both directed to it ; in these, and other like cases, 
the sensations we have are real, and the deception 
is only in the perception which nature has annexed to 
them. 

Nature has connected our perception of external ob- 
jects with certain sensations. If the sensation is pro- 
duced, the corresponding perception follows even when 
there is no object, and in this ca>se is apt to deceive us. 
In like manner, nature has connected our sensations 
with certain impressions that are made upon the nerves 
and brain : and, when the impression is made, from 
whatever cause, the corresponding sensation and per- 
ception immediately follow. Thus, in the man who 
feels pain in his toe after the leg is cut off, the nerve 
that went to the toe, part of which was cut off with 
the leg, had the same impression made upon the re- 
maining part, which, in the natural state of his body, 
was caused by a hurt in the toe : and immediately this 



nection of mind with organization extends from the centre to the circum- 
ference of the nervous system, and is not limited to any part. — H. 

Mtlller makes the fact, as stated in the text, incontestable. Physiology, 
Vol. I. p. 745. — Ed. 



164 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

impression is followed by the sensation and perception 
which nature connected with it.* 



* This is a doctrine which cannot be reconciled with that of an intuition 
or objective perception. All here is subjective. — H. 

In his Supplementary Dissertations, Note D, § 2. Sir W. Hamilton returns 
to this example, modifying somewhat the* view he had previously enter- 
tained : — " Take, for instance, a man whose leg has been amputated. If 
now two nervous filaments be irritated, the one of which ran to his great, 
the other to his little toe, he will experience two pains, as in these two 
members. Nor is there, in propriety, any deception in such sensations. 
For his toes, as all his members, are his only as they are to him sentient, 
as endowed with nerves and distinct nerves. The nerves thus constitute 
alone the whole sentient organism. In these circumstances, the peculiar 
nerves of the several toes, running isolated from centre to periphery, and 
thus remaining, though curtailed in length, unmutilated in function, will, 
if irritated at any point, continue to manifest their original sensations ; 
and these being now, as heretofore, manifested out of each other, must 
afford the condition of a perceived extension, not less real than that which, 
they afforded prior to the amputation. 

" The hypothesis of an extended sensorium commune, or complex ner- 
vous centre, the mind being supposed in proximate connection with each 
of its constituent nervous terminations or origins, may thus be reconciled 
to the doctrine of natural realism. 

" It is, however, I think, more philosophical to consider the nervous 
system as one whole, with each part of which the animating principle is 
equally and immediately connected, so long as each part remains in con- 
tinuity with the centre. As to the question of materialism, this doctrine 
is indifferent. For the connection of an unextended with an extended 
substance is equally incomprehensible, whether we contract the place of 
union to a central point, or whether we leave it coextensive with organiza- 
tion." 

Several authorities are referred to in support of this view, among which 
are the following: — St. Gregory of Nyssa, De Horn. Opif., cc. 12, 14, 15; 
Tiedemann, Psychologie, p. 309 et'seq.-; Berard, Des Rapports du Plvys. et 
du Mgr., Chap. I. § 2 ; R. G. Carus, Vbrles. ueb. Psj/chologie, passim ; Um- 
brcit, Psychologie, c. I., and Beilage, passim ; F. Fischer, Ueb. d. Sitz d. 
Seele, passim. This theory is also supposed to be in accordance with the 
doctrine of Aristotle, De Anima, Lib. I. Cap. IX. § 4, " that the soul con- 
tains the body, rather than the body the soul " ; — a doctrine on which was 
founded the common dogma of the schoolmen, " that the soul is all in the 
whole body, and all in every of its parts," meaning thereby, that the simple, 
unextended mind, in some inconceivable manner present to all the organs, 
is percipient of the peculiar affection which each is adapted to receive, 
and actuates each in the peculiar function which it is qualified to dis- 
charge. 

Still the common doctrine, as well with psychologists as with physiolo- 
gists, would seem to be, that the brain is the sole organ of the mind, and 
that the mind is peculiarly, if not exclusively, present to that organ, by 
means of which it feds as well as thinks. Compare Descartes, Les Pas- 
sions de VAme, Partie I. Art. XXX. et seq. ; Hartley's Observations on Man, 
Part I. Chap. I. Sect. I.; Haller's First Lines of Physiology, Chap. X. 
§ 372 ; Gall's Functions of the Brain, Sect. I. ; Broussais, De I'Irritation et 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 165 

In like manner, if the same impressions which are 
made at present upon my optic nerves by the objects 
before me could be made in the dark, I apprehend that 
I should have the same sensations, and see the same 
objects which I now see. The impressions and sensa- 
tions would in such a case be real, and the perception 
only fallacious. 

IV. (3.) Powers of Bodies.] Let us next consider 
the notions which our senses give us of those attributes 
of bodies called powers. This is the more necessary, 
because power seems to imply some activity ; yet we 
consider body as a dead, inactive thing, which does not 
act, but may be acted upon. 

Of the mechanical powers ascribed to bodies, that 
which is called their vis insita, or vis inertice, may first be 
considered. By this is meant no more than that bodies 
never change their state of themselves, either from rest 
to motion, or from motion to rest, or from one degree 
of velocity, or one direction, to another. In order to 
produce any such change, there must be some force im- 
pressed upon them ; and the change produced is pre- 
cisely proportioned to the force impressed, and in the 
direction of that force. 

That all bodies have this property is a matter of fact, 
which we learn from daily observation, as well as from 
the most accurate experiments. Now it seems plain, 
that this does not imply any activity in body, but rather 
the contrary. A power in body to change its state 
would much rather imply activity than its continuing 
in the same state : so that, although this property of 
bodies is called their vis insita, or vis inertice, it implies 
no proper activity. 

If we consider, next, the power of gravity, it is a 
fact, that all the bodies of our planetary system gravi- 
ng la Folie, Partie I. Chap. VI. ; Tissot, A nthropologie, Partie II Chap. V. ; 
Mailer's Physiology, Vol. I. p. 816 et seq. Most of them hold, that it is 
only by experience and association of ideas that we are led to refer the 
pain which we feel in the brain to the part of the body where the cause of 
the pain exists. — Ed. 



166 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

tate towards each other. This has been fully proved 
by the great Newton. But this gravitation is not con- 
ceived by that philosopher to be a power inherent in 
bodies, which they exert of themselves, but a force im- 
pressed upon them, to which they must necessarily 
yield. "Whether this force be impressed by some sub- 
tile ether, or whether it be impressed by the power of 
the Supreme Being, or of some subordinate spiritual 
being, we do not know ; but all sound natural philoso- 
phy, particularly that of Newton, supposes it to be an 
impressed force, and not inherent in bodies.* 

So that, when bodies gravitate, they do not properly 
act, but are acted upon. They only yield to an impres- 
sion that is made upon them. It is common in lan- 
guage to express, by active verbs, many changes in 
things, wherein they are merely passive. And this way 
of speaking is used chiefly when the cause of the change 
is not obvious to sense. Thus we say that a ship sails, 
when every man of common sense knows that she has 
no inherent power of motion, and is only driven by 
wind and tide. In like manner, when we say that the 
planets gravitate towards the sun, we mean no more 
than that, by some unknown power, they are drawn or 
impelled in that direction. 

What has been said of the power of gravitation 
may be applied to other mechanical powers, such as 
cohesion, magnetism, electricity, and no less to chemi- 
cal and medical powers. By all these, certain effects 
are produced, upon the application of one body to an- 
other. Our senses discover the effect ; but the power 
is latent. We know there must be a cause of the 
effect, and we form a relative notion of it from its effect ; 
and very often the same name is used to signify the 
unknown cause and the known effect. 

We ascribe to vegetables the powers of drawing 
nourishment, growing, and multiplying their kind. 
Here, likewise, the effect is manifest, but the cause is 



* That all activity supposes an immaterial or spiritual agent is an ancient 
doctrine. It is, however, only an hypothesis. — H. 



OF THE OBJECTS OF PERCEPTION. 167 

latent to sense. These powers, therefore, as well as all 
the other powers we ascribe to bodies, are unknown 
causes of certain known effects. It is the business of 
philosophy to investigate the nature of those powers as 
far as we are able, but our senses leave us in the dark. 

V. Manifest and Occult Qualities.] We may ob- 
serve a great similarity in the notions which our senses 
give us of. secondary qualities, of the disorders we feel 
in our own bodies, and of the various powers of bodies 
which we have enumerated. (1.) They are all obscure 
and relative notions, being a conception of some un- 
known cause of a known effect. (2.) Their names are, 
for the most part, common to the effect and to its 
cause. And (3.) they are a proper subject of philo- 
sophical disquisition. They might, therefore, I think, 
not improperly be called occult qualities. 

This name, indeed, has fallen into disgrace since the 
time of Descartes. It is said to have been used by the 
Peripatetics to cloak their ignorance, and to stop all 
inquiry into the nature of those qualities called occult. 
Be it so. Let those answer for this abuse of the word 
who were guilty of it. To call a thing occult, if we 
attend to the meaning of the word, is rather modestly 
to confess ignorance than to cloak it. It is to point it 
out as a proper subject for the investigation of philoso- 
phers, whose proper business it is to better the con- 
dition of humanity by discovering what was before hid 
from human knowledge. 

Were I, therefore, to make a division of the qualities 
of bodies as they appear to our senses, I would divide 
them first into those that are manifest, and those that 
are occult. The manifest qualities are those which Mr. 
Locke calls primary ; such as extension, figure, divisi- 
bility, motion, hardness, softness, fluidity. The nature 
of these is manifest even to sense ; and the business of 
the philosopher with regard to them is not to find out 
their nature, which is well known, but to discover the 
effects produced by their various combinations ; and, with 
regafrd to those of them which are not essential to mat- 
ter, to discover their causes as far as he is able. 



168 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

The second class consists of occult qualities, which 
may be subdivided into various kinds ; as, first, the sec- 
ondary qualities ; secondly, the disorders we feel in our 
own bodies ; and, thirdly, all the qualities which we call 
powers of bodies, whether mechanical, chemical, medi- 
cal, animal, or vegetable ; or if there be any other 
powers not comprehended under these heads. Of all 
these the existence is manifest to sense, but the nature 
is occult; and here the philosopher has an ample field. 

What is necessary for the conduct of our animal life, 
the bountiful Author of nature has made manifest to 
all men. But there are many other choice secrets of 
nature, the discovery of which enlarges the power and 
exalts the state of man. These are left to be discov- 
ered by the proper use of our rational powers. They 
are hid, not that they may be always concealed from 
human knowledge, but that we may be excited to 
search for them. This is the proper business of a phi- 
losopher, and it is the glory of a man, and the best 
reward of his labor, to discover what nature has thus 
concealed. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF MATTER AND SPACE. 

I. Origin and Characteristics of our Notion of Body, 
or Material Substance.] The objects of sense we have 
hitherto considered are qualities. But qualities must 
have a subject. We give the names of matter, material 
substance, and body to the subject of sensible quali- 
ties : and it may be asked what this matter is. 

I perceive in a billiard-ball, figure, color, and motion ; 
but the ball is not figure, nor is it color, nor motion, 
nor all these taken together ; it is something that has 
figure, and color, and motion. This is a dictate of na- 
ture, and the belief of all mankind. 



MATTER AND SPACE. 169 

As to the nature of this something, I am afraid we 
can give little account of it bat that it has the qualities 
which our senses discover. 

But how do we know that they are qualities, and 
cannot exist without a subject ? I confess I cannot 
explain how we know that they cannot exist without 
a subject, any more than I can explain how we know 
that they exist. "We have the information of nature 
for their existence ; and I think we have the informa- 
tion of nature that they are qualities. 

The belief that figure, motion, and color are quali- 
ties, and require a subject, must either be a judgment 
of nature, or it must be discovered by reason, or it 
must be a prejudice that has no just foundation. There 
are philosophers who maintain that it is a mere preju- 
dice ; that a body is nothing but a collection of what 
we call sensible qualities; and that they neither have 
nor need any subject. This is the opinion of Bishop 
Berkeley and Mr. Hume ; and they were led to it by 
finding that they had not in their minds any idea of 
substance. It could neither be an idea of sensation nor 
of reflection, the only sources of original and simple 
ideas which they recognized. But to me nothing seems 
more absurd than that there should be extension with- 
out any thing extended, or motion without any thing 
moved ; yet I cannot give reasons for my opinion, be- 
cause it seems to me self-evident, and an immediate 
dictate of my nature. 

And that it is the belief of all mankind appears in 
the structure of all languages; in which we find adjec- 
tive nouns used to express sensible qualities. It ^s well 
known that every adjective in language must belong to 
some substantive expressed or understood ; that is, every 
quality must belong to some subject. 

Sensible qualities make so great a part of the furni- 
ture of our minds, their kinds are so many and their 
number so great, that if prejudice, and not nature, teach 
us to ascribe them all to a subject, it must have a great 
work to perform, which cannot be accomplished in a 
short time, nor carried on to the same pitch in every 
15 



170 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

individual. We should find, not individuals only, but 
nations and ages differing from each other in the 
progress which this prejudice had made in their senti- 
ments ; but we find no such difference among men. 
What one man accounts a quality, all men do, and 
ever did. 

It seems, therefore, to be a judgment of nature, that 
the things immediately perceived are qualities, which 
must belong to a subject; and all the information that 
our senses give us about this subject is, that it is that 
to which such qualities belong. From this it is evident, 
that our notion of body or matter, as distinguished 
from its qualities, is a relative notion ; * and I am afraid 
it must always be obscure until men have other fac- 
ulties. 

The philosopher in this seems to have no advantage 
above the vulgar ; for as they perceive color and figure 
and motion by their senses as well as he does, and both 
are equally certain that there is a subject of those qual- 
ities, so the notions which both have of this subject are 
equally obscure. When the philosopher calls it a sub- 
stratum, and a subject of inhesion, those learned words 
convey no meaning but what every man understands 
and expresses by saying in common language that it 
is a thing extended, and solid, and movable. 

The relation which sensible qualities bear to their 
subject, that is, to body, is not, however, so dark but 
that it is easily distinguished from all other relations. 
Every man can distinguish it from the relation of an 
• 

* That is, our notion of absolute body is relative. This is incorrectly 
expressed. We can know, we can conceive, only what is relative. Our 
knowledge of qualities or phenomena is necessarily relative ; for these exist 
only as they exist in relation to our faculties. The knowledge, or even the 
conception, of a substance in itself, and apart from any qualities in relation 
to, and therefore cognizable or conceivable by, our minds, involves a con- 
tradiction. Of such we can form only a negative notion ; that is, we can 
merely conceive it as inconceivable. But to call this negative notion a 
relative notion is wrong; — 1st, because all our (positive) notions are relative ; 
and, 2d, because this is itself a negative notion, — i. e. no notion at all, — 
simply because there is no relation. The same improper application of the 
term relative was also made by Reid when speaking of the secondary qual- 
ities. — H. 



MATTER AND SPACE. 171 

effect to its cause, of a mean to its end, or of a sign to 
the thing signified by it. 

I think it requires some ripeness of understanding to 
distinguish the qualities of a body from the body. Per- 
haps this distinction is not made by brutes, nor by in- 
fants ; and if any one thinks that this distinction is not 
made by our senses, but by some other power of the 
mind, I will not dispute this point, provided it be grant- 
ed that men, when their faculties are ripe, have a natu- 
ral conviction that sensible qualities cannot exist by 
themselves without some subject to which they belong. 

I think, indeed, that some of the determinations we 
form concerning matter cannot be deduced solely from 
the testimony of sense, but must be referred to some 
other source. 

There seems to be nothing more evident, than that 
all bodies must consist of parts ; and that every part 
of a body is a body, and a distinct being which may 
exist without the other parts ; and yet I apprehend this 
conclusion is not deduced solely from the testimony of 
sense : for besides that it is a necessary truth, and 
therefore no object of sense,* there is a limit beyond 
which we cannot perceive any division of a body. 
The parts become too small to be perceived by our 
senses; but we cannot believe that it becomes then 
incapable of being further divided, or that such division 
would make it not to be a body. We carry on the 
division and subdivision in our thought far beyond the 
reach of our senses, and we can find no end to it: nay, 
I think we plainly discern, that there can be no limit 
beyond which the division cannot be carried. For if 
there be any limit to this division, one of two things 
must necessarily happen. Either we have come by 
division to a body which is extended, but has no parts, 



* It is creditable to Reid that he perceived that the quality of necessity 
is the criterion which distinguishes native from adveMtitious notions or 
judgments. He did not, however, always make the proper use of it. 
Leibnitz has the honor of first explicitly enouncing this criterion, and 
Kant, of first fully applying it to the phenomena. In none has Kant been 
more successful than in this under consideration. — H. 



172 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

and is absolutely indivisible ; or this body is divisible, 
but as soon as it is divided it becomes no body. Both 
these positions seem to me absurd, and one or the other 
is the necessary consequence of supposing a limit to 
the divisibility of matter. On the other hand, if it be 
admitted that the divisibility of matter has no limit, it 
will follow that no body can be called one individual 
substance. You may as well call it two, or twenty, or 
two hundred. For when it is divided into parts, every 
part is a being or substance distinct from all the other 
parts, and was so even before the division : any one 
part may continue to exist, though all the other parts 
are annihilated. 

There is, indeed, a principle long received as an 
axiom in metaphysics, which I cannot reconcile to the 
divisibility of matter. It is, that every being is one, — 
Omne ens est unum. By which, I suppose, is meant, 
that every thing that exists must either be one indivisi- 
ble being, or composed of a determinate number of indi- 
visible beings. Thus an army may be divided into 
regiments, a regiment into companies, and a company 
into men. But here the division has its limit; for you 
cannot divide a man without destroying him, because 
he is an individual ; .and every thing, according to this 
axiom, must be an individual, or made up of indi- 
viduals. 

That this axiom will hold with regard to an army, 
and with regard to many other things, must be granted : 
but I require the evidence of its being applicable to all 
beings whatsoever. Leibnitz, conceiving that all beings 
must have this metaphysical unity, was by this led to 
maintain, that matter, and indeed the whole universe, 
is made up of monads, that is, simple and indivisible 
substances. Perhaps the same apprehension might 
lead Boscovich into his hypothesis, which seems much 
more ingenious ; to wit, that matter is composed of a 
definite number of mathematical points, endowed with 
certain powers of attraction and repulsion. 

The divisibility of matter without any limit seems to 
me more tenable than either of these hypotheses; nor 



MATTER AND SPACE. 173 

do I lay much stress upon the metaphysical axiom, 
considering its origin. Metaphysicians thought proper 
to make the attributes common to all beings the sub- 
ject of a science. It must be a matter of some diffi- 
culty to find out such attributes: and, after racking 
their invention, they have specified three, to wit, unity, 
verity, and goodness ; and these, I supp se, have been 
invented to make a number, rather than from any clear 
evidence of their being universal. 

There are other determinations concerning matter, 
which, I think, are not solely founded upon the testi- 
mony of sense ; such as, that it is impossible that two 
bodies should occupy the same place at the same time, 
or that the same body should be in different places at 
the same time, or that a body can be moved from one 
place to another without passing through the inter- 
mediate places, either in a straight course or by some 
circuit. These appear to be necessary truths, and 
therefore cannot be conclusions of our senses ; for our 
senses testify only what is, and not what must necessa- 
rily be. 

II. Origin and Characteristics of our Notions of Ex- 
tension and Space.] We are next to consider our notion 
of space. It may be observed, that although space be 
not perceived by any of our senses when all matter is 
removed, yet, when we perceive any of the primary 
qualities, space presents itself as a necessary concom- 
itant: for there can neither be extension, nor motion, 
nor figure, nor division, nor cohesion of parts, without 
space. 

There are only two of our senses by which the notion 
of space enters into the mind, — to wit, touch and 
sight. If we suppose a man to have neither of these 
senses, I do not see how he could ever have any con- 
ception of space.* Supposing him to have both, until 

* According to Reid, extension (space) is a notion a posteriori, the result 
of experience. According to Kant, it is a priori ; experience only afford- 
ing the occasions required by the mind to exert the acts of which the intu- 
ition of space is a condition. To the former it is thus a contingent, to the 

15* 



174 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

he sees or feels other objects, he can have no notion of 
space. It has neither color nor figure to make it an 
object of sight; it has no tangible quality to make it 
an object of touch. But other objects of sight and 
touch carry the notion of space along with them; and 
not the notion only, but the belief of it: for a body 
could not exist if there were no space to contain it : it 
could not move if there were no space : its situation, its 
distance, and every relation it has to other bodies, sup- 
pose space. 

But though the notion of space seems not to enter 
at first into the mind until it is introduced by the 
proper objects of sense, yet, being once introduced, it 
remains in our conception and belief, though the ob- 
jects which introduced it be removed. We see no 
absurdity in supposing a body to be annihilated ; but 
the space that contained it remains, and to suppose 
that annihilated seems to be absurd. It is so much 



latter, a necessary mental possession. That the notion of space is a neces- 
sary condition of thought, and that, as such, it is impossible to derive it 
from experience, has been cogently demonstrated by Kant. But that we 
may, through sense, have empirically an immediate perception of something 
extended, I have yet seen no valid reason to doubt. The a priori concep- 
tion does not exclude the a posteriori perception ; and this latter cannot be 
rejected without belying the evidence of consciousness, which assures ns 
that we are immediately cognizant, not only of a self, but of a not-self, — 
not only of mind, but of matter ; and matter cannot be immediately known, 
— that is, known as existing, — except, as something extended. In this, 
however, I venture a step beyond Reid and Stewart, no less than beyond 
Kant ; though I am convinced that the philosophy of the two former 
tended to this conclusion, which is, in fact, that of the common sense of 
mankind. — H. 

In his Supplementary Dissertations, Note D, § 1, Sir W. Hamilton retracts 
one of the statements in the preceding note. He says: — "I may take 
this opportunity of modifying a former statement, that, according to Reid, 
space is a notion a posteriori, the result of experience. On reconsidering 
more carefully his different statements on this subject. I am now inclined 
to think that his language implies no more than the chronological posteri- 
ority of this notion ; and that he really held it to be a native, necessary, 
a priori form of thought, requiring only certain prerequisite conditions to 
call it from virtual into manifest existence. I am confirmed in this view 
by finding it is also that of M. Royer-Collard. Mr. Stewart is, however, 
less defensible, when he says, in opposition to Kant's doctrine of space, — 
' I rather lean to the common theory which supposes our first ideas of 
space or extension to be firmed by other qualities of matter.' Dissertation, 
Notes and Illustrations, Note (S s)." — Ed. 



MATTER AND SPACE. 175 

allied to nothing or emptiness, that it seems incapable 
of annihilation or of creation. 

Space not only retains a firm hold of our belief, even 
when we suppose all the objects that introduced it to 
be annihilated, but it swells to immensity. We can set 
no limits to it, either of extent or of duration. Hence 
we call it immense, eternal, immovable, and indestructible. 

But it is only an immense, eternal, immovable, and 
indestructible void or emptiness. Perhaps we may ap- 
ply to it what the Peripatetics said of their first mat- 
ter, — that whatever it is, it is potentially only, not 
actually. 

When we consider parts of space that have measure 
and figure, there is nothing we understand better, noth- 
ing about which we can reason so clearly and to so 
great extent. Extension and figure are circumscribed 
parts of space, and are the object of geometry, a sci- 
ence in which human reason has the most ample field, 
and can go deeper and with more certainty than in any 
other. But when we attempt to comprehend the whole 
of space, and to trace it to its origin, we lose ourselves 
in the search. The profound speculations of ingenious 
men upon this subject differ so widely, as may lead us 
to suspect that the line of human understanding is too 
short to reach the bottom of it. 

Bishop Berkeley, I think, was the first who observed 
that the extension, figure, and space of which we speak 
in common language, and of which geometry treats, 
are originally perceived by the sense of touch only; 
but that there is a notion of extension, figure, and 
space which may be got by sight, without any aid from 
touch. To distinguish these, he calls the first tangible 
extension, tangible figure, and tangible space ; the last 
he calls visible. 

As I think this distinction very important in the phi- 
losophy of our senses, I shall adopt the names used by 
the inventor to express it; remembering what has been 
already observed, that space, whether tangible or vis- 
ible, is not so properly an object of sense as a necessary 
concomitant of the objects both of sight and touch. 



176 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

The reader may likewise be pleased to attend to this, 
that when I use the names of tangible and visible space, 
I do not mean to adopt Bishop Berkeley's opinion, so 
far as to think that they are really different things, and 
altogether unlike. I take them to be different concep- 
tions of the same thing; the one very partial, and the 
other more complete, but both distinct and just, as far 
as they reach. 

Thus, when I see a spire at a very great distance, 
it seems like the point of a bodkin ; there appears no 
vane at the top, no angles. But when I view the same 
object at a small distance, I see a huge pyramid of sev- 
eral angles with a vane on the top. Neither of these 
appearances is fallacious. Each of them is what it 
ought to be, and what it must be, from such an object 
seen at such different distances. These different ap- 
pearances of the same object may serve to illustrate 
the different conceptions of space, according as they 
are drawn from the information of sight alone, or as 
they are drawn from the additional information of 
touch. 

Our sight alone, unaided by touch, gives a very par- 
tial notion of space, but yet a distinct one. When it 
is considered according to this partial notion, I call it 
visible space. The sense of touch gives a much more 
complete notion of space; and when it is considered 
according to this notion, I call it tangible space. Per- 
haps there may be intelligent beings of a higher order, 
whose conceptions of space are much more complete 
than those we have from both senses. Another sense 
added to those of sight and touch might, for what I 
know, give us conceptions of space as different from 
those we can now attain as tangible space is from vis- 
ible, and might resolve many knotty points concerning 
it, which, from the imperfection of our faculties, we 
cannot by any labor untie.* 

* On the origin of the notion of space and its relation to that of body, 
compare Cousin, Elements of Psychology, Chap. II. 

He makes the distinguishing characteristics of space to be as follows : 
— 1 . Space is given us as necessary, while body is given as that which 



MATTER AND SPACE. 177 

III. Visible and Tangible Extension.] Berkeley ac- 
knowledges that there is an exact correspondence be- 
tween the visible figure and magnitude of objects and 
the tangible ; and that every modification of the one 
has a modification of the other corresponding. He 
acknowledges, likewise, that nature has established 
such a connection between the visible figure and mag- 
nitude of an object and the tangible, that we learn by 
experience to know the tangible figure and magnitude 
from the visible. And having been accustomed to do 
so from infancy, we get the habit of doing it with such 

may or may not exist ; 2. Space is given us as without limits, while body 
is given as limited on every side ; 3. The idea of space is a pure and 
wholly rational conception, that is, we cannot bring it up before us under any 
determinate form or image, while the idea of body is always accompanied 
with an image, a sensible representation. 

In tracing these ideas to their origin, he is led to notice two orders of 
relations among our ideas, which it is important clearly to distinguish in 
respect not only to space, but to all our a priori conceptions. 

" Two ideas being given, we may inquire whether the one does not sup- 
pose the other; whether, the one being admitted, we must' not admit the 
other likewise, or be guilty of a paralogism. This is the logical order of 
ideas. If we regard the question of the origin of ideas under this point 
of .view, let us see what result it will give in respect to the particular in- 
quiry before us. The idea of body and the idea of space being given, 
which supposes the other? Which is the logical condition of the admission 
of the other 1 Evidently the idea of space is the logical condition of the 
admission of the idea of body. In fact, take any body you please, and 
you cannot admit the idea of it but under the condition of admitting, at 
the same time, the idea of space : otherwise \>ou would admit a body 
which was nowhere, which was in no place, and such a body is incon- 
ceivable. 

" But this is not the sole order of cognition ; the logical relation does 
not comprise all the relations which ideas mutually sustain. There is still 
another, that of anterior or posterior, the order of the relative develop- 
ment of ideas in time, — their chronological order. And the question of 
the origin of ideas may be regarded under this point of view. Now the 
idea of space, we have just seen, is clearly the logical condition of all sen- 
sible experience. Is it also the chronological condition of all experience, 
and of the idea of body "? I believe no such thing. If we take ideas in 
the order in which they actually evolve themselves in the intelligence, if 
we investigate only their history and successive appearance, it is not true 
that the idea of space is antecedent to the idea of body. Indeed, it is so 
little true that the idea of space chronologically supposes the idea of body, 
that, in fact, if you had not the idea of body, you would never have the 
idea of space. Take away sensation, take away the sight and touch, and 
you have no longer any idea of body, and consequently none of space." 

His conclusion is, that our notion of body is empirical, — that is to say, 
derived from experience, or a posteriori; but our notion of space, though 



178 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

facility and quickness, that we think we see tangible 
figure, magnitude, and distance of bodies, when, in 
reality, we only collect those tangible qualities from the 
'corresponding visible qualities, which are natural signs 
of them. 

The correspondence and connection which Berkeley 
shows to be between the visible figure and magnitude 
of objects and their tangible figure and magnitude, is 
in some respects very similar to that which we have 
observed between our sensations and the primary qual- 
ities with which they are connected. No sooner is the 

developed on occasion of experience, is not derived from it, inasmuch as 
experience does not contain it in any other sense than as, in the view of 
reason, it presupposes it. Experience does not give the notion of space to 
reason, but reason gives it to exj>erience ; and hence it is said to be not 
empirical, but a necessary and a priori conception of the reason. 

Others still maintain that the notion of space is wholly empirical, being 
nothing but one of the sensible qualities of body considered abstractly. 
Of these psychologists, the ablest, perhaps, is James Mill, who says, — 
" Concrete terms are connotative terms ; abstract terms are non-connotative 
terms. Concrete terms, along with a certain quality or qualities, which is 
their principal meaning, or notation, connote the object to which the quality 
helongs. Thus the concrete red always means, that is, connotes, something 
red, as a rose. We have already by sufficient examples s.een, that the 
Abstract formed from the Concrete notes precisely that which is noted by 
the Concrete, leaving out the comiotation. Thus, take away the connota- 
tion from red, and you have redness ; from hot, take away the connotation, 
and you have heat. The very same is the distinction between the concrete 
extended, and the abstract extension. What extended is with its connotation, 
extension is without that connotation." 

According to him, therefore, the word space, understood in its most com- 
prehensive sense, or infinite extension, " is an abstract, differing from its 
concrete, like other abstracts, by dropping the connotation. Much of the 
mystery in which the idea has seemed to be involved is owing to this single 
circumstance, that the abstract term space has not had an appropriate 
concrete. We have observed, that in all cases abstract terms can be ex- 
plained only through their concretes ; because they note or name a part of 
what the concrete names, leaving out the rest. If we were to make a 
concrete term, corresponding to the abstract term space, it must be a word 
equivalent to the terms infinitely extended. From the ideas included under 
the name infinitely extended, leave out resisting, and you have all that is 
marked by the abstract space." — Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap. XIV. 
Sect. IV. 

See also Kant's Critic of Pure Reason, Part I. Sect. I. ; Team's First 
Lines of the Human Mind, Chap. V. ; Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive 
Sciences, Part I. Book II. Chap. I. -VI. ; Brown's Philosophy of the Human 
Mind, Lect. XXIV.: Ballantyne's Examination of the Human Mind, Chap. 
I. Sect. I. ; Brook Taylor's Co)ite?npfatio Philosophica, p. 45 et seq. ; Hic- 
kok's Rational Psychology, Book II. Part I. Chap. I. — Ed. 



MATTER AND SPACE. 



179 



sensation felt, than immediately we have the concep- 
tion and belief of the corresponding quality. We give 
no attention to the sensation ; it has not a name ; and 
it is difficult to persuade us that there was any such 
thing. 

In like manner, no sooner are the visible figure and 
magnitude of an object seen, than immediately we 
have the conception and belief of the corresponding 
tangible figure and magnitude. We give no attention 
to the visible figure and magnitude. They are imme- 
diately forgotten, as if they had never been perceived ; 
they have no name in common language ; and, indeed, 
until Berkeley pointed them out as a subject of specu- 
iation, and gave them a name, they had none among 
philosophers, excepting in one instance, relating to the 
heavenly bodies, which are beyond the reach of touch. 
With regard to them, what Berkeley calls visible mag- 
nitude was by astronomers called apparent magni- 
tude. 

There is surely an apparent magnitude and an ap- 
parent figure of terrestrial objects, as well as of celes- 
tial ; and this is what Berkeley calls their visible figure 
and magnitude. But they were never made an object 
of thought among philosophers, until that author gave 
them a name, and observed the correspondence and 
connection between them and tangible magnitude and 
figure, and how the mind gets the habit of passing so 
instantaneously from the visible figure, as a sign, to the 
tangible figure, as the thing signified by it, that the 
first is perfectly forgotten, as if it had never been per- 
ceived. 

Visible figure, extension, and space may be made a 
subject of mathematical speculation, as well as the 
tangible. In the visible, we find two dimensions only ; 
in the tangible, three. In the one, magnitude is meas- 
ured by angles ; in the other, by lines. Every part of 
visible space bears some proportion to the whole ; but 
tangible space being immense, any part of it bears no 
proportion to the whole. 

Such differences in their properties led Bishop Berke- 



180 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

ley to think, that visible and tangible magnitude and 
figure are things totally different and dissimilar, and 
cannot both belong to the same object. And upon this 
dissimilitude is grounded one of the strongest argu- 
ments by which his system is supported. For it may 
be said, if there be external objects which have a real 
extension and figure, it must be either tangible exten- 
sion and figure, or visible, or both* The last appears 
absurd ; nor was it ever maintained by any man, that 
the same object has two kinds of extension and figure, 
totally dissimilar. There is, then, only one of the two 
really in the object ; and the other must be ideal. But 
no reason can be assigned why the perceptions of one 
sense should be real, while those of another are only 
ideal ; and he who is persuaded that the objects of sight 
are ideas only has equal reason to believe so of the 
objects of touch. 

This argument, however, loses all its force, if it be 
true, as was formerly hinted, that visible figure and ex- 
tension are only a partial conception, and the tangible 
figure and extension a more complete conception of 
that figure and extension which are really in the ob- 
ject. 

It has been proved very fully by Bishop Berkeley, 
that sight alone, without any aid from the informations 
of touch, gives us no perception, nor even conception, 
of the distance of any object from the eye. But he 
was not aware that this very principle overturns the 
argument for his system, taken from the difference be- 
tween visible and tangible extension and figure: for, 
supposing external objects to exist, and to have that 
tangible extension and figure which we perceive, it fol- 
lows demonstrably, from the principle now mentioned, 
that their visible extension and figure must be just 
what we see them to be. The rules of perspective, and 
of the projection of the sphere, which is a branch of 



* Or neither. And this omitted supposition is the true. For neither 
sight nor touch gives us full, and accurate information in regard to the real 
extension and figure of objects. — H. 



OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE. 



181 



perspective, are demonstrable. They suppose the ex- 
istence of external objects, which have a tangible ex- 
tension and figure; and, upon that supposition, they 
demonstrate what must be the visible extension and 
figure of such objects, when placed in such a position 
and at such a distance. 

Hence it is evident, that the visible figure and exten- 
sion of objects are so far from being incompatible with 
the tangible, that the first are a necessary consequence 
from the last, to beings that see as we do. The corre- 
spondence between them is not arbitrary, like that be- 
tween words and the things they signify, as Berkeley 
thought, but it results necessarily from the nature of 
the two senses ; and this correspondence, being always 
found in experience to be exactly what the rules of per- 
spective show that it ought to be if the senses give 
true information, is an .argument for the truth of both. 



CHAPTER X. 



OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE, AND OF BELIEF IN 
GENERAL. 

I. On Belief in general, and the Different Kinds of 
Evidence.] Belief assent, conviction, are words which 
I think do not admit of logical definition, because the 
operation of mind signified by them is perfectly simple, 
and of its own kind. Nor do they need to be defined, 
because they are common words, and well understood. 

Belief must have an object. For he that believes 
must believe something ; and that which he believes is 
called the object of his belief. Of this object of his 
belief, he must have some conception, clear or obscure ; 
for although there may be the most clear and distinct 
conception of an object without any belief of its exist- 
ence, there can be no belief without conception. 

Belief is always expressed in language by a propo- 
16 



182 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

sition, wherein something is affirmed or denied. This 
is the form of speech which in all languages is appro- 
priated to that purpose, and without belief there could 
be neither affirmation nor denial, nor should we have 
any form of words to express either. Belief admits of 
all degrees, from the slightest suspicion to the fullest 
assurance. These things are so evident to every man 
that reflects, that it would be abusing the reader's pa- 
tience to dwell upon them. 

I proceed to observe, that there are many operations 
of mind in which, when we analyze them as far as we 
are able, we find belief to be an essential ingredient. 
A man cannot be conscious of his own thoughts, with- 
out believing that he thinks. He cannot perceive an 
object of sense, without believing that it exists* He 
cannot distinctly remember a past event, without be- 
lieving that it did exist. Belief, therefore, is an ingre- 
dient in consciousness, in perception, and in remem- 
brance. 



* Mr. Stewart, Elements, Part I. Chap. III., and Essays, II. Chap. II., 
proposes a supplement to this doctrine of Reid, in order to explain why 
we believe in the existence of the qualities of external objects when they 
are not the objects of our perception. This belief he holds to be the result 
of experience, in combination with an original principle of our constitution, 
whereby we are determined to believe in the permanence of the laws of nature. 
— H. 

Mr. Stewart's words are: — "It has always appeared to me, that some- 
thing of this sort was necessary to complete Dr. Reid's speculations on 
the Berkeleian controversy ; for, although he has shown our notions con- 
cerning the primary qualities of bodies to be connected, by an original 
law of our constitution, with the sensations which they excite in our minds, 
he has taken no notice of the grounds of our belief that these qualities 
have an existence independent of our perceptions. This belief (as I have 
elsewhere observed) is plainly the result of experience; inasmuch as a 
repetition of the perceptive act must have been prior to any judgment, on 
our part, with respect to the separate and permanent reality of its object. 
Nor does experience afford a complete solution of the problem ; for, as we 
are irresistibly led by our perceptions to ascribe to their objects a future, 
as well as a present, reality, the question still remains, how are we deter- 
mined by the experience of the past to carry our inferences forward to a 
portion of time which is yet to come. To myself, the difficulty appears to 
resolve itself, in the simplest and most philosophical mannei - , into that law 
of our constitution to which Turgot, long ago, attempted to trace it, — 
into our belief of the continuance of ' the laws of nature ' ; or, in other 
words, into an expectation that, in the same combination of circumstances, 
the same event will recur." — Ed. 



OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE. 183 

Not only in most of our intellectual operations, but 
in many of the active principles of the human mind, 
belief enters as an ingredient. Joy and sorrow, hope 
and fear, imply a belief of good or ill, either present or 
in expectation. Esteem, gratitude, pity, and resent- 
ment imply a belief of certain qualities in their objects. 
In every action that is done for an end, there must be 
a belief of its tendency to that end. So large a share 
has belief in our intellectual operations, in our active 
principles, and in our actions themselves, that, as faith 
in things divine is represented as the mainspring in the 
life of a Christian, so belief in general is the main- 
spring in the life of a man. 

That men often believe what there is no just ground 
to believe, and thereby are led into hurtful errors, is too 
evident to be denied : and, on the other hand, that there 
are just grounds of belief can as little be doubted by 
any man who is not a perfect skeptic. 

We give the name of evidence to whatever is a ground 
of belief. To believe without evidence is a weakness 
which every man is concerned to avoid, and which 
every man wishes to avoid. Nor is it in a man's 
power to believe any thing longer than he thinks he 
has evidence. 

What this evidence is, is more easily felt than de- 
scribed. Those who never reflected upon its nature 
feel its influence in governing their belief. It is the 
business of the logician to explain its nature, and to 
distinguish its various kinds and degrees ; but every 
man of understanding can judge of it, and commonly 
judges right, when the evidence is fairly laid before 
him, and his mind is free from prejudice. A man who 
knows nothing of the theory of vision may have a 
good eye ; and a man who never speculated about 
evidence in the abstract may have a good judgment. 

The common occasions of life lead us to distinguish 
evidence into different kinds, to which we give names 
that are well understood ; such as the evidence of sense, 
the evidence of memory, the evidence of consciousness, 
the evidence of testimony, the evidence of axioms, the 



184 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

evidence of reasoning'. All men of common under- 
standing agree, that each of these^kinds of evidence 
may afford just ground of belief, and they agree very 
generally in the circumstances that strengthen or weak- 
en them. 

Philosophers have endeavoured, by analyzing the 
different sorts of evidence, to find out some common 
nature wherein they all agree, and thereby to reduce 
them all to one. This was the aim of the schoolmen 
in their intricate disputes about the criterion of truth. 
Descartes placed this criterion of truth in clear and dis- 
tinct perception, and laid it down as a maxim, that 
whatever we clearly and distinctly perceive to be true 
is true ; but it is difficult to know what he understands 
by clear and distinct perception in this maxim.* Mr. 
Locke placed it in a perception of the agreement or 
disagreement of our ideas, which perception is immedi- 
ate in intuitive knowledge, and by the intervention of 
other ideas in reasoning. 

I confess that, although I have, as I think, a distinct 
notion of the different kinds of evidence above men- 
tioned, and perhaps of some others, which it is un- 
necessary here to enumerate, yet I am not able to find 
any common nature to which they may all be reduced, 
They seem to me to agree only in this, that they are 
all fitted by nature to produce belief in the human mind, 
— some of them in the highest degree, which we call 
certainty, others in various degrees according to circum- 
stances. 

II. On the Peculiar Nature of the Evidence of Sense.] 
I shall take it for granted, that the evidence of sense, 
when the proper circumstances concur, is good evi- 
dence, and a just ground of belief. My intention in 
this place is only to compare it with the other kinds 
that have been mentioned, that we may judge whether 



* On the purport of this maxim consult Descartes's Principes de la 
Philosophie, I ere Partie, 42 - 47 ; Lettres sur les Instances de Gassendi, No. 
10; and IIp me et IV eme Meditations. — Ed. 



OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE. 185 

it be reducible to any of them, or of a nature peculiar 
to itself. 

1. It seems to be quite different from the evidence of 
reasoning. All good evidence is commonly called rea- 
sonable evidence, and very justly, because it ought to 
govern our belief as reasonable creatures. And, ac- 
cording to this meaning, I think the evidence of sense 
no less reasonable than that of demonstration. If 
nature give us information of things that concern us 
by other means than by reasoning, reason itself will 
direct us to receive that information with thankfulness, 
and to make the best use of it. But when we speak 
of the evidence of reasoning as a particular kind of 
evidence, it means the evidence of propositions that 
are inferred by reasoning from propositions already 
known and believed. Thus the evidence of the fifth 
proposition of the first book of Euclid's Elements con- 
sists in this, — that it is shown to be the necessary con- 
sequence of the axioms, and of the preceding proposi- 
tions. In all reasoning, there must be one or more 
premises, and a conclusion drawn from them. And 
the premises are called the reason why we must believe 
the conclusion which we see to follow from them. 

That the evidence of sense is of a different kind 
needs little proof. No man seeks a reason for believ- 
ing what he sees or feels ; and if he did, it would be 
difficult to find one. But though he can give no reason 
for believing his senses, his belief remains as firm as if- 
it were grounded on demonstration. 

Many eminent philosophers, thinking it unreason- 
able to believe when they could not show a reason, 
have labored to furnish us with reasons for believing 
our senses ; but their reasons are very insufficient, and 
will not bear examination. Other philosophers have 
shown very clearly the fallacy of these reasons, and 
have, as they imagine, discovered invincible reasons 
against this belief; but they have never been able either 
to shake it in themselves, or to convince others. The 
statesman continues to plod, the soldier to fight, and 
the merchant to export and import, without being in 
16* 



186 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

the least moved by the demonstrations that have been 
offered of the non-existence of those things about which 
they are so seriously employed. And a man may as 
soon, by reasoning, pull the moon out of her orbit, as 
destroy the belief of the objects of sense. 

2. Shall we say, then, that the evidence of sense is 
the same with that of axioms, or self-evident truths ? I 
answer, first, that all modern philosophers seem to 
agree, that the existence of the objects of sense is not 
self-evident, because some of them have endeavoured 
to prove it by subtile reasoning, others to refute it. 
Neither of these can consider it as self-evident. 

Secondly, I would observe, that the word axiom is 
taken by philosophers in such a sense, as that the ex- 
istence of the objects of sense cannot, with propriety, 
be called an axiom. They give the name of axiom 
only to self-evident truths that are necessary, and are 
not limited to time and place, but must be true at all 
times and in all places. The truths attested by our 
senses are not of this kind ; they are contingent, and 
limited to time and place. Thus, that one is the half 
of two, is an axiom. It is equally true at all times 
and in all places. We perceive, by attending to the 
proposition itself, that it cannot but be true; and there- 
fore it is called an eternal, necessary, and immutable 
truth. That there is at present a chair on my right 
hand, and another on my left, is a truth attested by my 
senses; but it is not necessary, nor eternal, nor immu- 
table. It may not be true next minute ; and, therefore, 
to call it an axiom would, I apprehend, be to deviate 
from the common use of tire word. 

Thirdly, If the word axiom be put to signify every 
truth which is known immediately, without being de- 
duced from any antecedent truth, then the existence of 
the objects of sense may be called an axiom. For my 
senses give me as immediate conviction of what they 
testify, as my understanding gives me of what is com- 
monly called an axiom. 

3. There is, no doubt, an analogy between the evi- 
dence of sense and the evidence of testimony. Hence 



OF THE EVIDENCE OF SENSE. 187 

we find in all languages the analogical expressions of 
the testimony of sense, of giving credit to our senses, 
and the like. But there is a real difference between 
the two, as well as a similitude. In believing upon 
testimony, we rely upon the authority of a person who 
testifies : but we have no such authority for believing 
our senses. 

4. Shall we say, then, that this belief is the inspires 
tion of the Almighty ? I think this may be said in .a 
good sense ; for I take it to be the immediate effect of 
our constitution, which is the work of the Almighty. 
But if inspiration be understood to imply a persuasion 
of its coming from God, our belief of the objects of 
sense is not inspiration ; for a man would believe his 
senses, though he had no notion of a Deity. He who 
is persuaded that he is the workmanship of God, and 
that it is a part of his constitution to believe his senses, 
may think that a good reason to confirm his belief: but 
he had the belief before he could give this or any other 
reason for it. 

5. If we compare the evidence of sense with that of 
memory, we find a great resemblance, but still some 
difference. I remember distinctly to have dined yester- 
day with such a company. What is the meaning of 
this ? It is, that I have a distinct conception and firm 
belief of this past event ; not by reasoning, not by tes- 
timony, but immediately from my constitution : and I 
give the name of memory to that part of my constitu- 
tion by which I have this kind of conviction of past 
events. I see a chair on my right hand. What is the 
meaning of this ? It is, that I have, by my constitu- 
tion, a distinct conception and firm belief of the present 
existence of the chair in such a place, and in such a 
position ; and I give the name of seeing to that part of 
my constitution by which I have this immediate con- 
viction. The two operations agree in the immediate 
conviction which they give. They agree in this also, 
that the things believed are not necessary, but contin- 
gent, and limited to time and place. But they differ in 
two respects : — 'fflrst, that memory has something for 



188 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

its object that did exist in time past ; but the object of 
sight, and of all the senses, must be something which 
exists at present. And, secondly, that I see by my 
eyes, and only when they are directed to the object, 
and when it is illuminated. But my memory is not 
limited by any bodily organ that I know, nor by light 
and darkness, though it has its limitations of another 
kind.* 

6. As to the opinion, that evidence consists in a per- 
ception of the agreement or disagreement of ideas, we 
may have occasion to consider it more particularly in 
another place. Here I only observe, that, when taken 
in the most favorable sense, it may be applied with 
propriety to the evidence of reasoning, and to the evi- 
dence of some axioms. But I cannot see how, in any 
sense, it can be applied to the evidence of consciousness, 
to the evidence of memory, or to that of the senses. 

When I compare the different kinds of evidence 
above mentioned, I confess, after all, that the evidence 
of reasoning, and that of some necessary and self- 
evident truths, seem to be the least mysterious and the 
most perfectly comprehended ; and therefore I do not 
think it strange that philosophers should have endeav- 
oured to reduce all kinds of evidence to these. 

When I see a proposition to be self-evident and 
necessary, and that the subject is plainly included in 
the predicate, there seems to be nothing more that I 
can desire, in order to understand why 1 believe it. 
And when I see a consequence that necessarily follows 
from one or more self-evident propositions, I want noth- 
ing more with regard to my belief of that consequence. 
The light of truth so fills my mind in these cases, that 
I can neither conceive nor desire any thing more satis- 
fying. 

On the other hand, when I remember distinctly a 

* There is a moi - e important difference than these omitted. In memory, 
we cannot possibly be conscious, or immediately cognizant, of any object 
beyond the modifications of the ego itself. In perception if an immediate 
perception be allowed) we must be conscious, or immediately cognizant, of 
some phenomenon of the non-ego. — H. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 189 

past event, or see an object before my eyes, this com- 
mands my belief no less than an axiom. But when, 
as a philosopher, I reflect upon this belief, and want to 
trace it to its origin, I am not able to resolve it into 
necessary and self-evident axioms, or conclusions that 
are necessarily consequent upon them. I seem to want 
that evidence which I can best comprehend, and which 
gives perfect satisfaction to an inquisitive mind; yet it 
is ridiculous to doubt, and I find it is not in my power* 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 

I. In what Respects our Senses are and are not Im- 
provable.] Our senses may be considered in two views ; 
first, as they afford us agreeable sensations, or subject 
us to such as are disagreeable ; and, secondly, as they 
give us information of things that concern us. 

In the first view, they neither require nor admit of 
improvement. Both the painful and the agreeable sen- 
sations of our external senses are given by nature for 
certain ends ; and they are given in that degree which 
is the most proper for their end. By diminishing or 
increasing them, we should not mend, but mar, the 
work of nature. 

Bodily pains are indications of some disorder or hurt 



* If an immediate knowledge of external things — that is, a conscious- 
ness of the qualities of the non-ego — be admitted, the belief of their ex- 
istence follows of course. On this supposition, therefore, such a belief 
would not be unaccountable; for it would be accounted for by the fact of 
the knowledge in which it would necessarily be contained. Our belief, in 
this case, of the existence of external objects, would not be more inexpli- 
cable than our belief that 2 -\- 2 = 4. In both cases it would be sufficient 
to say, We believe became we know ; for belief is only unaccountable when it 
is not the consequent or concomitant of knowledge. By this, however, I 
do not, of course, mean to say that knowledge is not iu itself marvellous 
and unaccountable. — H. 



190 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

of the body, and admonitions to use the best means in 
our power to prevent or remove their causes. As far as 
this can be done by temperance, exercise, regimen, or 
the skill of the physician, every man has sufficient in- 
ducement to do it. 

When pain cannot be prevented or removed, it is 
greatly alleviated by patience and fortitude of mind. 
While the mind is superior to pain, the man is not un- 
happy, though he may be exercised. It leaves no sting- 
behind it, but rather matter of triumph and agreeable 
reflection, when borne properly, and in a good cause. 
The Canadians have taught us, that even savages may 
acquire a superiority to the most excruciating pains ; 
and, in every region of the earth, instances will be 
found where a sense of duty, of honor, or even of 
worldly interest, has triumphed over it. 

It is evident, that nature intended for man, in his 
present state, a life of labor and toil, wherein he may 
be occasionally exposed to pain and danger : and the 
happiest man is not he who has felt least of those evils, 
but he whose mind is fitted to bear them by real mag- 
nanimity. 

Our active and perceptive powers are improved and 
perfected by use and exercise. This is the constitution 
of nature. But, with regard to the agreeable and dis- 
agreeable sensations we have by our senses, the very 
contrary is an established constitution of nature : the 
frequent repetition of them weakens their force. Sen- 
sations at first very disagreeable by use become tolera- 
ble, and at last perfectly indifferent. And those that 
are at first very agreeable by frequent repetition become 
insipid, and at last perhaps give disgust. Nature has 
set limits to the pleasures of sense, which we cannot 
pass ; and all studied gratification of them, as it is mean 
and unworthy of a man, so it is foolish and fruitless. 

The man who, in eating and drinking, and iu other 
gratifications of sense, obeys the. calls of nature, with- 
out affecting delicacies and refinements, has all the en- 
joyment that the senses can afford. If one could, by a 
soft and luxurious life, acquire a more delicate sensi- 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 191 

bility to pleasure, it must be at the expense of a like 
sensibility to pain, from which he can never promise 
exemption ; and at the expense of cherishing many 
diseases which produce pain. 

The improvement of our external senses, as they are 
the means of giving us information, is a subject more 
worthy of our attention : for although they are not the 
noblest and most exalted powers of our nature, yet 
they are not the least useful. All that we know or can 
know of the material world must be grounded upon 
their information ; and the philosopher, as well as the 
day-laborer, must be indebted to them for the largest 
part of his knowledge. 

II. Original and Acquired Perceptions.] Some of our 
perceptions by the senses may be called original, be- 
cause they require no previous experience or learning; 
but the far greater part are acquired, and the fruit of 
experience. 

Three of our senses — to wit, smell, taste, and hear- 
ing — originally give us only certain sensations, and a 
conviction that these sensations are occasioned by some 
external object. We give a name to that quality of 
the object by which it is fitted to produce such a sen- 
sation, and connect that quality with the object and 
with its other qualities. 

Thus we learn, that a certain sensation of smell is 
produced by a rose ; and that quality in the rose, by 
which it is fitted to produce this sensation, we call the 
smell of the rose. Here it is evident that the sensation 
is original. The perception, that the rose has that 
quality which we call its smell, is acquired. In like 
manner, we learn all those qualities in bodies which we 
call their smell, their taste, their sound. These are all 
secondary qualities, and we give the same name to 
them which we give to the sensations they produce ; 
not from any similitude between the sensation and the 
quality of the same name, but because the quality is 
signified to us by the sensation as its sign, and because 
our senses give us no other knowledge of the quality 
than that it is fit to produce such a sensation. 



192 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

By the other two senses, we have much more ample 
information. By sight, we learn to distinguish objects 
by their color, in the same manner as by their sound, 
taste, and smell. By this sense, we perceive visible 
objects to have extension in two dimensions, to have 
visible figure and magnitude, and a certain angular dis- 
tance from one another. These, I conceive, are the 
original perceptions of sight* 

By touch, we not only perceive the temperature of 
bodies as to heat and cold,f which are secondary quali- 
ties, but we perceive originally their three dimensions, 
their tangible figure and magnitude, their linear dis- 
tance from one another, their hardness, softness, or 
fluidity. These qualities we originally perceive by 
touch only ; but, by experience, we learn to perceive all 
or most of them by sight. 

We learn to perceive, by one sense, what originally 
could have been perceived only by another, by finding 
'a connection between the objects of the different senses. 
Hence the original perceptions, or the sensations, of 
one sense, become signs of whatever has always been 
found connected with them ; and from the sign the 



* In another connection, speaking of the perceptions of sight, Sir W. 
Hamilton has said: — "It is incorrect to say that 'we see the object,' 
(meaning the thing from which the rays come by emanation or reflection, 
but lohich is unknown and incognizable by sight,) and so forth. It would be 
more correct to describe vision, — a perception, by which we take imme- 
diate cognizance of light in relation to our organ, — that is, as diffused 
and figured upon the retina, under various modifications of degree and 
kind, (brightness and color,) — and likewise as falling on it in a particular 
direction. The image on the retina is not itself an object of visual per- 
ception. It is only to be regarded as the complement of those points, or 
of that sensitive surface, on which the rays impinge, and with which they 
enter into relation. The total object of visual perception is thus neither 
the rays in themselves, nor the organ in itself, but the rays and the living 
organ in reciprocity : this organ is not, however, to be viewed as merely 
the retina, but as the whole tract of nervous fibre pertaining to the sense. 
In an act of vision, as also in the other sensitive acts, I am thus conscious, 
(the word should not be restricted to semiconsciousness,) or immediately 
cognizant, not only of the affections of self, but of the phenomena of 
something different from self, both, however, always in relation to each 
other." — Ed. 

t Whether heat, cold, &c, be objects of touch, or of a different sense, 
has been considered in a former note. — Ed. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 193 

mind passes immediately to the conception and belief 
of the thing signified: and although the connection in 
the mind between the sign and the thing signified by- 
it be the effect of custom, this custom becomes a 
second nature, and it is difficult to distinguish it from 
the original power of perception. 

Thus, if a sphere of one uniform color be set before 
me, I perceive evidently by my eye its spherical figure 
and its three dimensions. All the world will acknowl- 
edge, that by sight only, without touching it, I may be 
certain that it is a sphere ; yet it is no less certain, that, 
by the original power of sight, I could not perceive it 
to be a sphere, and to have three dimensions. The eye 
originally could only perceive two dimensions, and 
a gradual variation of color on the different sides of 
the object. It is experience that teaches me that the 
variation of color is an effect of spherical convexity, 
and of the distribution of light and shade. But so 
rapid is the progress of the thought from the effect to 
the cause, that we attend only to the last, and can 
hardly be persuaded that we do not immediately see 
the three dimensions of the sphere. Nay, it may be 
observed, that, in this case, the acquired perception in 
a manner effaces the original one; for the sphere is 
seen to be of one uniform color, though originally there 
would have appeared a gradual variation of color : but 
that apparent variation we learn to interpret as the 
effect of light and shade falling upon a sphere of one 
uniform color. 

A sphere may be painted upon a plane, so exactly as 
to be taken for a real sphere, when the eye is at a 
proper distance, and in the proper point of view. "We 
say in this case, that the eye is deceived, that the ap- 
pearance is fallacious ; but there is no fallacy m the 
original perception, but only in that which is acquired 
by custom. The variation of color exhibited to the 
eye by the painter's art is the same which nature ex- 
hibits by the different degrees of light falling upon the 
convex surface of a sphere. 

In perception, whether original or acquired, there is 
17 



194 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

something which may be called the sign, and something 
which is signified to us, or brought to our knowledge, 
by that sign. 

In original perception, the signs are the various sen- 
sations which are produced by the impressions made 
upon our organs. The things signified are the objects 
perceived in consequence of those sensations, by the 
original constitution of our nature. Thus, when I grasp 
an ivory ball in my hand, I have a certain sensation of 
touch. Although this sensation be in the mind, and 
have no similitude to any thing material, yet, by the 
laws of my constitution, it is immediately followed by 
the conception and belief, that there is in my hand a 
hard, smooth body, of a spherical figure, and about an 
inch and a half in diameter. This belief is grounded 
neither upon reasoning nor upon experience; it is the 
immediate effect of my constitution, and this I call 
original perception. 

In acquired perception, the sign may be either a sen- 
sation, or something originally perceived. The thing 
signified is something which, by experience, has been 
found connected with that sign. Thus, when the ivory 
ball is placed before my eye, I perceive by sight what 
I before perceived by touch, that the ball is smooth, 
spherical, of such a diameter, and at such a distance 
• from the eye; and to this is added the perception of its 
color. All these things I perceive by sight distinctly, 
and with certainty; yet it is certain, from principles of 
philosophy, that, if I had not been accustomed to com- 
pare the informations of sight with those of touch, I 
should not have perceived these things by sight. I 
should have perceived a circular object, having its color 
gradually more faint towards the shaded side. But I 
should not have perceived it to have three dimensions, 
to be spherical, to be of such a linear magnitude, and 
at such a distance from the eye. That these last men- 
tioned are not original perceptions of sight, but ac- 
quired by experience, is sufficiently evident from the 
principles of optics, and from the art of painters, in 
painting objects of three dimensions upon a plane which 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 195 

has only two. And it has been put beyond all doubt, 
by observations recorded of several persons, who, hav- 
ing, by cataracts in their eyes, been deprived of sight 
from their infancy, were couched and made to see, after 
they came to years of understanding,* 

* The reference on this subject is commonly to Cheselden ; though it 
must be confessed that the mode in which the case of the young man 
couched by that distinguished surgeon is reported does not merit all the 
eulogia that have been lavished on it. It is at once imperfect and indis- 
tinct. Thus, on the point in question, Cheselden says : — " He (the pa- 
tient) knew not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from another, 
however different in shape and magnitude; hut, upon being told what 
things they were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would care- 
fully observe, that he might know them again ; but, having too many ob- 
jects to learn at once, he forgot many of them, and (as he said) at first he 
learned to know, and again forgot, a thousand things in a day. One par- 
ticular only, though it may appear trifling, I will relate. Having often 
forgotten which was the cat and which the dog, he was ashamed to ask ; 
but catching the cat, which he knew by feeling, he was observed to look at 
her steadfastly, and then, setting her down, said, '• So puss ! I shall know 
you another time.' " 

Here, when Cheselden says that his patient, when recently couched, 
" knew not the shape of any thing, nor any one thing from another," &c., 
this cannot mean that he saw no difference between the objects of different 
shapes and sizes ; for, if this interpretation were adopted, the rest of the 
statement becomes nonsense. If he had been altogether incapable of appre- 
hending differences, it could not be said that, " being told what things they 
were, whose form he before knew from feeling, he would carefully observe, 
that he might know them again " ; for observation supposes the power of 
discrimination, and, in particular, the anecdote of the dog and cat would 
be inconceivable on that hypothesis. It is plain that Cheselden only meant 
to say, that the things which the patient could previously distinguish and 
denominate by touch, he could not now identify and refer to their appella- 
tions by sight. And this is what we might, <i. priori, be assured of. A 
sphere and a cube would certainly make different impressions on him : 
but it is probable that he could not assign to each its name, though, in this 
particular case, there is good ground for holding that the slightest consid- 
eration would enable a person, previously acquainted with these figures, 
and aware that one was a cube and the other -a. square, to connect them 
with his anterior experience, and to discriminate them by name. See 
Philosophical Transactions, 1728, No. 402 — H. 

In another note, Sir W. Hamilton observes : — " Nothing in the whole 
compass of inductive reasoning appears more satisfactory than Berkeley's 
demonstration of the necessity and manner of our learning, by a slow 
process of observation and comparison alone, the connection between the 
perceptions of vision and touch, and, in general, all that relates to the dis- 
tance and real magnitude of external things. But, although the same 
necessity seems in theory equally incumbent on the lower animals as on 
man, yet this theory is provokingly — and that by the most manifest expe- 
rience — found totally at fault with regard to them ; for we find that all 
the animals who possess at birth the power of regulated motion (and 



196 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

Those who have had their eyesight from infancy ac- 
quire such perceptions so early, that they cannot recol- 
lect the time when they had them not, and therefore 
make no distinction between them and their original 
perceptions ; nor can they be easily persuaded that 
there is any just foundation for such a distinction. In 
all languages, men speak with equal assurance of their 
seeing- objects to be spherical or cubical, as of their 
feeling- them to be so ; nor do they ever dream that 
these perceptions of sight were not as early and origi- 
nal as the perceptions they have of the same objects 
by touch. 

From what has been said, I think it appears that our 
original powers of perceiving objects by our senses re- 
ceive great improvement by use and habit, and, with- 
out this improvement, would be altogether insufficient 

these are those only through whom the truth of the theory can be brought 
to the test of a decisive experiment) possess also from birth the whole 
apprehension of distance, &c, which they are ever known to exhibit. The 
solution of this difficulty by a resort to instinct is unsatisfactory ; for in- 
stinct is, in fact, an occult principle, — a kind of natural revelation, — and 
the hypothesis of instinct, therefore, only a confession of our ignorance ; 
and, at the same time, if instinct be allowed in the lower animals, how 
can we determine whether and how far instinct may not, in like manner, 
operate to the same result in man 1 — I have discovered, and, by a wide 
induction, established, that the power of regulated motion at birth is, in all 
animals, governed by the development, at that period, of the cerebellum, 
in proportion to the brain proper. Is this law to be extended to the faculty 
of determining distances, &c, by sight? " 

Mr. Bailey, in his Review of Berkeley's Theory of Vision, contests strenu- 
ously the common doctrine respecting the perception of magnitude, figure, 
and distance, — maintaining that it is not an acquired, but an original, per- 
ception of sight. In particular, he examines all the accredited reports of 
persons who have been relieved from early or congenital blindness by sur- 
gical operations ; — not only the case of Cheselden's patient, mentioned 
above, but that of a boy seven years old (Master W.), related by Mr. Ware, 
Philos. Trans., 1801 ; those of John Salter and William Stiff, related by 
Sir E. Home, Philos. Trans., 1807 ; and two cases related by Mr. Wardrop, 
that of Ifames Mitchell, so much valued by Mr. Stewart, and of which a 
separate memoir was published, and the still more interesting one of a 
lady, recorded in the Philos. Trans., 1826. He shows that the evidence 
afforded by these reports is by no means so decisive in favor of the Berke- 
leian theory as is generally supposed. In other respects his argument is 
not so successful. For an answer see the Westminster Review for October, 
1842. See also Adam Smith's Essays on Philosophical Subjects, the last 
essay, Of the External Senses ; and Young's Lectures on Intellectual Philos- 
ophy, Lect. XIII. - XV. — Ed. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SENSES. 197 

for the purposes of life. The daily occurrences of life 
not only add to our stock of knowledge, but give ad- 
ditional perceptive powers to our senses ; thus time 
gives us the use of our eyes and ears, as well as of our 
hands and legs. This is the greatest and most impor- 
tant improvement of our external senses. It is to be 
found in all men come to years of understanding, but 
is various in different persons, according to their differ- 
ent occupations, and the different circumstances in 
which they are placed. Every artist acquires an eye, 
as well as a hand, in his own profession : his eye be- 
comes skilled in perceiving, no less than his hand in 
executing, what belongs to his employment. 

III. Artificial Means of improving the External Sen- 
ses, and of extending the Information obtained thereby.] 
Besides this improvement of our senses, which nature 
produces without our intention, there are various ways 
in which they may be improved, or their defects reme- 
died, by art. As, first, by a due care of the organs of 
sense, that they be in a sound and natural state. This 
belongs to the department of the medical faculty. 

Secondly, by accurate attention to the objects of sense. 
The effects of such attention in improving our senses 
appear in every art. The artist, by giving more atten- 
tion to certain objects than others do, by that means 
perceives many things in those objects which others do 
not. Those who happen to be deprived of one sense 
frequently supply that defect, in a great degree, by giv- 
ing more accurate attention to the objects of the senses 
they have. The blind have often been known to ac- 
quire uncommon acuteness in distinguishing things by 
feeling and hearing ; and the deaf are uncommonly 
quick in reading men's thoughts in their countenance. 

A third way in which our senses admit of improve- 
ment is by additional organs or instruments contrived by 
art. By the invention of optical glasses, and the grad- 
ual improvement of them, the natural power of vision 
is wonderfully improved, and a vast addition made to 
the stock of knowledge which we acquire by the eye. 
17* 



198 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

By speaking-trumpets and ear-trumpets, some improve- 
ment has been made in the sense of hearing. Whether 
by similar inventions the other senses may be improved, 
seems uncertain. 

A fourth method by which the information got by 
our senses may be improved is by discovering the con- 
nection which nature has established between the sensible 
qualities of objects 'and their more latent qualities. 

By the sensible qualities of bodies, I understand 
those that are perceived immediately by the senses, 
such as their color, figure, feeling, sound, taste, smell. 
The various modifications and various combinations of 
these are innumerable ; so that there are hardly two 
individual bodies in nature that may not be distin- 
guished by their sensible qualities. The latent quali- 
ties are such as are not immediately discovered by our 
senses, but discovered, sometimes by accident, some- 
times by experiment or observation. The most impor- 
tant part of our knowledge of bodies is the knowledge 
of the latent qualities of the several species, by which 
they are adapted to certain purposes, either for food, or 
medicine, or agriculture, or for the materials or utensils 
of some art or manufacture. I am taught that certain 
species of bodies have certain latent qualities ; but how 
shall I know that this individual is of such a species ? 
This must be known by the sensible qualities which 
characterize the species. I must know that this is 
bread, and that wine, before I eat the one or drink the 
other. I must know that this is rhubarb, and that 
opium, before I use the one or the other for medicine. 

It is one branch of human knowledge to know the 
names of the various species of natural and artificial 
bodies, and to know the sensible qualities by which 
they are ascertained to be of such a species, and by 
which they are distinguished from one another. It is 
another branch of knowledge to know the latent quali- 
ties of the several species, and the uses to which they 
are subservient. The man who possesses both these 
branches is informed by his senses of innumerable 
things of real moment, which are hid from those who 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 199 

possess only one, or neither. This is an improvement 
in the information got by our senses, which must keep 
pace with the improvements made in natural history, 
in natural philosophy, and in the arts. 

It would be an improvement still higher, if we were 
able to discover any connection betiveen the sensible quali- 
ties of bodies and their latent qualities, Without knowing 
the species, or what may have been discovered with regard 
to it. 

Some philosophers of the first rate have made at- 
tempts towards this noble improvement, not without 
promising hopes of success. Thus the celebrated Lin- 
naeus has attempted to point out certain sensible quali- 
ties by which a plant may very probably be concluded 
to be poisonous, without knowing its name or species. 
He has given several other instances, wherein certain 
medical and economical virtues of plants are indicated 
by their external appearances. . Sir Isaac Newton has 
attempted to show, that from the colors of bodies we 
may form a probable conjecture of the size of their 
constituent parts, by which the rays of light are re- 
flected. 

No man can pretend to set limits to the discoveries 
that may be made by human genius and industry of 
such connections between the latent and the sensible 
qualities of bodies. A wide field here opens to our 
view, whose boundaries no man can ascertain, of im- 
provements that may hereafter be made in the informa- 
tion conveyed to us by our senses. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF THE ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 

I. No Foundation for the common Complaint on this 
Subject.] Complaints of the fallacy of the senses have 
been very common in ancient and in modern times, 



200 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

especially among the philosophers. If we should take 
for granted all they have said on this subject, the natu- 
ral conclusion from it might seem to be, that the senses 
are given to us by some malignant demon on purpose 
to delude us, rather than that they are formed by the 
wise and beneficent Author of nature, to give us true 
information of things necessary to our preservation and 
happiness. 

This complaint they have supported by many com- 
monplace instances ; — such as the crooked appear- 
ance of an oar in water ; objects being magnified, and 
their distance mistaken, in a fog ; the sun and moon 
appearing about a foot or two in diameter, while they 
are really thousands of miles ; a square tower being 
taken at a distance to be round. These, and similar 
appearances, many among the ancient philosophers 
thought to be sufficiently accounted for by the fallacy of 
the senses ; and thus the fallacy of the senses was used 
as a decent cover to conceal their ignorance of the real 
causes of such phenomena, and served the same pur- 
pose as their occult qualities and substantial forms. 

Descartes and his followers joined in the same com- 
plaint. Antony le Grand, a philosopher of that sect, 
in the first chapter of his Logic, expresses the senti- 
ments of the sect as follows : — " Since all our senses 
are fallacious, and we are frequently deceived by them, 
common reason advises, that we should not put too 
much trust in them, nay, that we should suspect false- 
hood in every thing they represent ; for it is imprudence 
and temerity to trust to those who have once deceived 
us ; and if they err at any time, they may be believed 
always to err. They are given by nature for this pur- 
pose only, to warn us of what is useful and what is 
hurtful to us. The order of nature is perverted when 
we put them to any other use, and apply them for the 
knowledge of truth." 

When we consider that the active part of mankind, 
in all ages from the beginning of the world, have rested 
their most important concerns upon the testimony of 
sense, it will be very difficult to reconcile their conduct 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 201 

with the speculative opinion so generally entertained 
of the fallaciousness of the senses. Also it seems to 
be a very unfavorable account of the workmanship of 
the Supreme Being, to think that he has given us one 
faculty to deceive us, — to wit, our senses ; and another 
faculty — to wit, our reason — to detect the fallacy. 

It deserves, therefore, to be considered, whether the 
alleged fallaciousness of our senses be not a common 
error, which men have been led into from a desire to 
conceal their ignorance, or to apologize for their mis- 
takes. 

There are two powers which we owe to our external 
senses, sensation, and the perception of external objects. 

It is impossible that there can be any fallacy in sen- 
sation ; for we are conscious of all our sensations, and 
they can neither be any other in their nature, nor 
greater or less in their degree, than we feel them. It is 
impossible that a man should be in pain, when he does 
not feel pain ; and when he feels pain, it is impossible 
that his pain should not be real, and in its degree what 
it is felt to be ; and the same thing may be said of 
every sensation whatsoever. An agreeable or an un- 
easy sensation may be forgotten when it is past, but 
when it is present, it can be nothing but what we feel. 

If, therefore, there be any fallacy in our senses, it 
must be in the perception of external objects, which we 
shall next consider. 

And here I grant that we can conceive powers of 
perceiving external objects more perfect than ours, 
which possibly beings of a higher order may enjoy. 
We can perceive external objects only by means of 
bodily organs ; and these are liable to various disorders, 
which sometimes affect our powers of perception. So 
the imagination, the memory, the judging and reason- 
ing powers, are all liable to be hurt, or even destroyed, 
by disorders of the body, as well as our powers of per- 
ception ; but we do not on this account call them fal- 
lacious. 

Our senses, our memory, and our reason are all lim- 
ited and imperfect: this is the lot of humanity: but 



202 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

they are such as the Author of our being saw to be 
best fitted for us in our present state. Superior natures 
may have intellectual powers which we have not. or 
such as we have in a more perfect degree, and less 
liable to accidental disorders : but we have no reason 
to think that God has given fallacious powers to any 
of his creatures : this would be to think dishonorably 
of our Maker, and would lay a foundation for universal 
skepticism. 

II. Alleged Fallacies of the Senses reducible to Four 
Classes.] The appearances commonly imputed to the 
fallacy of the senses are many, and of different kinds ; 
but I think they may be reduced to the four following 
classes. 

First, Many things called deceptions of the senses 
are only conclusions rashly drawn from the testimony of 
the senses. In these cases the testimony of the senses 
is true, but we rashly draw a conclusion from it which 
does not necessarily follow. We are disposed to im- 
pute our errors rather to false information than to in- 
conclusive reasoning, and to blame our senses for the 
wrong conclusions we draw from their testimony. 

Thus, when a man has taken a counterfeit guinea 
for a true one, he says his senses deceived him ; but he 
lays the blame where it ought not to be laid: for we 
may ask him, Did your senses give a false testimony of 
the color, or of the figure, or of the impression? No. 
But this is all that they testified, and this they testified 
truly : from these premises you concluded that it was 
a true guinea, but this conclusion does not follow ; you 
erred, therefore, not in relying upon the testimony of 
sense, but in judging rashly from its testimony. Not 
only are your senses innocent of this error, but it is 
only by their information that it can be discovered. If 
you consult them properly, they will inform you that 
what you took for a guinea is base metal, or is deficient 
in weight, and this can only be known by the testi- 
mony of sense. 

I remember to have met with a man who thought 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 203 

the argument used by Protestants against the Popish 
doctrine of transubstantiation, from the testimony of 
our senses, inconclusive ; because, said he, instances 
may be given where several of our senses may deceive 
us. How do we know, then, that there may not be 
cases wherein they all deceive, us, and no sense is left 
to detect the fallacy ? I begged of him to show an in- 
stance -wherein several of our senses deceive us. " I 
take," said he, " a piece of soft turf, I cut it into the 
shape of an apple ; with the essence of apples I give it 
the smell of an apple ; and with paint, I can give it the 
skin and color of an apple. Here, then, is a body, 
which, if you judge by your eye, by your touch, or by 
your smell, is an apple." 

To this I would answer, that no one of our senses 
deceives us in this case. My sight and touch testify 
that it has the shape and color of an apple : this is true. 
The sense of smelling testifies that it has the smell of 
an apple : this is likewise true, and is no deception. 
Where, then, lies the deception? It is evident it lies 
in this, that because this body has some qualities be- 
longing to an apple, I conclude that it is an apple. 
This is a fallacy, not of the senses, but of inconclusive 
reasoning. 

Many false judgments that are accounted deceptions 
of sense arise from our mistaking relative motion for 
real or absolute motion. These can be no deceptions 
of sense, because by our senses we perceive only the 
relative motions of bodies ; and it is by reasoning that 
we infer the real from the relative which we perceive. 
A little reflection may satisfy us of this. 

It was before observed, that we perceive extension to 
be one sensible quality of bodies, and thence are neces- 
sarily led to conceive space, though space be of itself 
no object of sense. When a body is removed out of 
its place, the space which it filled remains empty till it 
is filled by some other body, and would remain if it 
should never be filled. Before any body existed, the 
space which bodies now occupy was empty space, capa- 
ble of receiving bodies ; for no body can exist where 



204 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

there is no space to contain it. There is space, there- 
fore, wherever bodies exist, or can exist. Hence it is 
evident that space can have no limits. It is no less 
evident that it is immovable. Bodies placed in it are 
movable, but the place where they were cannot be 
moved ; and we can as easily conceive a thing to be 
moved from itself, as one part of space brought nearer 
to or removed farther from another. This space, there- 
fore, which is unlimited and immovable, is called by 
philosophers absolute space. Absolute or real motion 
is. a change of place in absolute space. Our senses do 
not testify the absolute motion or absolute rest of any 
body. When one body removes from another, this 
may be discerned by the senses ; but whether any body 
keeps the same part of absolute space, we do not per- 
ceive by our senses. When one body seems to remove 
from another, we can infer with certainty that there is 
absolute motion ; but whether in the one or the other, 
or partly in both, is not discerned by sense. 

Of all the prejudices which philosophy contradicts, I 
believe there is none so general as that the earth keeps 
its place unmoved. This opinion seems to be uni- 
versal, till it is corrected by instruction, or by philo- 
sophical speculation. Those who have any tincture of 
education are not now in danger of being held by it, 
but they find at first a reluctance to believe that there 
are antipodes; that the earth is spherical, and turns 
round its axis every day, and round the sun every year : 
they can recollect the time when reason struggled with 
prejudice upon these points, and prevailed at length, 
but not without some effort. 

The cause of a prejudice so very general is not un- 
worthy of investigation. But that is not our present 
business. It is sufficient to observe, that it cannot 
justly be called a fallacy of sense; because our senses 
testify only the change of situation of one body in 
relation to other bodies, and not its change of situation 
in absolute space. It is only the relative motion of 
bodies that we perceive, and that we perceive truly. 
It is the province of reason and philosophy, from the 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 205 

relative motions which we perceive, to collect the real 
and absolute motions which produce them. All motion 
must be estimated from some point or place which is 
supposed to be at rest. We perceive not the points of 
absolute space, from which real and absolute motion 
must be reckoned; and there are obvious reasons that 
lead mankind, in the state of ignorance, to make the 
earth the fixed place from which they may estimate the 
various motions they perceive. The custom of doing 
this from infancy, and of using constantly a language 
which supposes the earth to be at rest, may perhaps 
be the cause of the general prejudice in favor of this 
opinion. 

Thus it appears, that, if we distinguish accurately 
between what our senses really and naturally testify, and 
the conclusions which we draw from their testimony by 
reasoning, we shall find many of the errors called falla- 
cies of the senses to be no fallacies of the senses, but 
rash judgments, which are not to be imputed to our 
senses. 

Secondly, Another class of errors imputed to the fal- 
lacy of the senses consists of those to which we are 
liable in our acquired perceptions. Acquired perception 
is not properly the testimony of those senses which 
God has given us, but a conclusion drawn from what 
the senses testify. In our past experience, we have 
found certain things conjoined with what our senses 
testify. We are led by our constitution to expect this 
conjunction in time to come ; and when we have often 
found it in our experience to happen, we acquire a firm 
belief that the things which we have found thus con- 
joined are connected in nature, and that one is a sign 
of the other. The appearance of the sign immediately 
produces the belief of its usual attendant, and we think 
we perceive the one as well as the other. 

That such conclusions are formed even in infancy, 
no man can doubt ; nor is it less certain that they are 
confounded with the natural and immediate percep- 
tions of sense, and in all languages are called by the 
same name. We are, therefore, authorized by language 
18 



206 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

to call them perceptions, and must often do so, or speak 
unintelligibly. But philosophy teaches us in this, as in 
many other instances, to distinguish things which the 
vulgar confound. I have therefore given the name of 
acquired perceptions to such conclusions, to distinguish 
them from what is naturally, originally, and immediately 
testified by our senses. Whether this acquired percep- 
tion is to be resolved into some process of reasoning, of 
which we have lost the remembrance, as some philoso- 
phers think, or whether it results immediately from our 
constitution, as I rather believe, does not concern the 
present subject. If the first of these opinions be true, 
the errors of acquired perception will fall under the first 
class before mentioned. If not, it makes a distinct 
class by itself. But whether the one or the other be 
true, it must be observed, that the errors of acquired 
perception are not properly fallacies of our senses. 

Thus, when a globe is set before me, I perceive by 
my eyes that it has three dimensions and a spherical 
figure. To say that this is not perception, would be to 
reject the authority of custom in the use of words, 
which no wise man will do : but that it is not the tes- 
timony of my sense of seeing, every philosopher knows. 
I see only a circular form, having the light and color 
distributed in a certain way over it. But being accus- 
tomed to observe this distribution of light and color 
only in a spherical body, I immediately, from what I 
see, believe the object to be spherical, and say that I see 
or perceive it to be spherical. When a painter, by an 
exact imitation of that distribution of light and color 
which I have been accustomed to see only in a real 
sphere, deceives me, so as to make me take that to be 
a real sphere which is only a painted one, the testimony 
of my eye is true, — the color and visible figure of the 
object are truly what I see them to be : the error lies in 
the conclusion drawn from what I see, — to wit, that 
the object has three dimensions and a spherical figure. 
The conclusion is false in this case ; but whatever be 
the origin of this conclusion, it is not properly the testi- 
mony of sense. 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 207 

To this class we must refer the judgments we are 
apt to form of the distance and magnitude of the 
heavenly bodies, and of terrestrial objects seen on high. 
The mistakes we make of the magnitude and distance 
of objects seen through optical glasses, or through an 
atmosphere uncommonly clear or uncommonly foggy, 
belong likewise to this class. 

The errors we are led into in acquired perception are 
very rarely hurtful to us in the conduct of life ; they 
are gradually corrected by a more enlarged experience, 
and a more perfect knowledge of the laws of nature : 
and the general laws of our constitution, by which 
we are sometimes led into them, are of the greatest 
utility. 

We come into the world ignorant of every thing, 
and by our ignorance exposed to many dangers and to 
many mistakes. Were we sensible of our condition 
in that period, and capable of reflecting upon it, we 
should be like a man in the dark, surrounded with 
dangers, where every step he takes may be into a pit. 
Reason would direct him to sit down, and wait till he 
could see about him. Nature has followed another 
plan. The child, unapprehensive of danger, is led by 
instinct to exert all his active powers, to try every thing 
without the cautious admonitions of reason, and to 
believe every thing that is told him. Sometimes he 
suffers by his rashness what reason would have pre- 
vented ; but his suffering proves a salutary discipline, 
and makes him for the future avoid the cause of it. 
Sometimes he is imposed upon by his credulity ; but 
it is of infinite benefit to him upon the whole. His 
activity and credulity are more useful qualities, and 
better instructors than reason would be; they teach him 
more in a day than reason would do in a year ; they 
furnish a stock of materials for reason to work upon ; 
they make him easy and happy in a period of his ex- 
istence, when reason could only serve to suggest a 
thousand tormenting anxieties and fears : and he acts 
agreeably to the constitution and intention of nature, 
even when he does and believes what reason would not 



208 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

justify. So that the wisdom and goodness of the Au- 
thor of nature are no less conspicuous in withholding 
the exercise of our reason in this period, than in be- 
stowing it when we are ripe for it. 

A third class of errors, ascribed to the fallacy of the 
senses, proceeds from ignorance of the laws of nature. 

The laws of nature (I mean not moral hut physical 
laws) are learned either from our own experience, or 
the experience of others, who have had occasion to 
observe the course of nature. Ignorance of those laws, 
or inattention to them, is apt to occasion false judg- 
ments with regard to the objects of sense, especially 
those of hearing and of sight; which false judgments 
are often, without good reason, called fallacies of sense. 

Sounds affect the ear differently, according as the 
sounding body is before or behind us, on the right hand 
or on the left, near or at a great distance. We learn, 
by the manner in which the sound affects the ear, on 
what hand we are to look for the sounding body ; and 
in most cases we judge right. But we are sometimes 
deceived by echoes, or by whispering-galleries, or speak- 
ing-trumpets, which return the sound, or alter its direc- 
tion, or convey it to a distance without diminution. 
The deception is still greater, because more uncommon, 
which is said to be produced by ventriloquists, — that 
is, persons who have acquired the art of modifying their 
voice, so that it shall affect the ear of the hearers as if 
it came from another person, or from the clouds, or from 
under the earth. Some are also said to have the art of 
imitating the voice of another so exactly, that in the 
dark they might be taken for the person whose voice 
they imitate. 

It is, indeed, a wonderful instance of the accuracy 
as well as of the truth of our senses in things that are 
of real use in life, that we are able to distinguish all 
our acquaintance by their countenance, by their voice, 
and by their handwriting, when at the same time we 
are often unable to say by what minute difference the 
distinction is made ; and that we are so very rarely 
deceived in matters of this kind, when we give proper 



ALLEGED FALLACY OF THE SENSES. 209 

attention to the informations of sense. However, if 
any case should happen in which sounds produced by 
different causes are not distinguishable by the ear, this 
may prove that our senses are imperfect, but not that 
they axe fallacious. The ear may not be able to draw 
the just conclusion, but it is only our ignorance of the 
laws of sound that leads us to a wrong conclusion. 

Deceptions of sight, arising from ignorance of the 
laws of nature, are more numerous and more remarka- 
ble than those of hearing. 

The rays of light, which are the means of seeing, 
pass in right lines from the object to the eye, when 
they meet with no obstruction ; and we are by nature 
led to conceive the visible object to be in the direction 
of the rays that come to the eye. But the rays may 
be reflected, refracted, or inflected in their passage from 
the object to the eye, according to certain fixed laws of 
nature, by which means their direction may be changed, 
and consequently the apparent place, figure, or magni- 
tude of the object. Thus, a child seeing himself in a 
mirror thinks he sees another child behind the mirror, 
that imitates all his motions. But even a child soon 
gets the better of this deception, and knows that he 
sees himself only. 

All the deceptions made by telescopes, microscopes, 
camera obscuras, or magic lanterns, are of the same 
kind, though not so familiar to the vulgar. The igno- 
rant may be deceived by them ; but to those who are 
acquainted with the principles of optics, they give just 
and true information, and the laws of nature by which 
they are produced are of infinite benefit to mankind. 

There remains another class of errors, commonly 
called deceptions of sense, and the only one, as I 
apprehend, to which that name can be given with 
propriety : I mean such as proceed from some disorder 
or preternatural stale, either of the external organ, or of 
the nerves and brain, which are internal organs of per- 
ception. 

In a delirium or in madness, perception, memory, im- 
agination, and our reasoning powers are strangely dis- 
18* 



210 SENSATION AND PERCEPTION. 

ordered and confounded. There are likewise disorders 
which affect some of our senses, while others are sound. 
Thus, a man may feel pain in his toes after the leg is 
cut off. He may feel a little ball double, by crossing 
his fingers. He may see an object double, by not 
directing both eyes properly to it. By pressing the ball 
of his eye, he may see colors that are not real. By the 
jaundice in his eyes, he may mistake colors. These 
are more properly deceptions of sense than any of the 
classes before mentioned. 

We must acknowledge it to be the lot of human 
nature, that all the human faculties are liable, by acci- 
dental causes, to be hurt and unfitted for their natural 
functions, either wholly or in part ; but as this imper- 
fection is common to them all, it gives no just ground 
for accounting any one of them fallacious more than 
another. 

I add only one observation to what has been said 
upon this subject. It is, that there seems to be a con- 
tradiction between what philosophers teach concerning 
ideas, and their doctrine of the fallaciousness of the 
senses. We are taught that the office of the senses is 
only to give us the ideas of external objects. If this 
be so, there can be no fallacy in the senses. Ideas can 
neither be true nor false. If the senses testify nothing, 
they cannot give false testimony. If they are not 
judging faculties, no judgment can be imputed to 
them, whether false or true. There is, therefore, a con- 
tradiction between the common doctrine concerning 
ideas and that of the fallaciousness of the senses. 
Both may be false, as I believe they are, but both can- 
not be true. 



ESSAY III. 

OF MEMORY. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF THE NATURE AND FUNCTIONS OF THIS FACULTY. 

I. Memory distinguished from Sensation and Percep- 
tion.] In the gradual progress of man from infancy to 
maturity, there is a certain order in which his faculties 
are unfolded, and this seems to be the best order we 
can follow in treating of them. The external senses 
appear first ; memory soon follows, — which we are now 
to consider. 

It is by memory that we have an immediate knowl- 
edge of things past.* The senses give us information 
of things only as they exist in the present moment; 
and this information, if it were not preserved by 
memory, would vanish instantly, and leave us as igno- 
rant as if it had never been. 

Every man who remembers must remember some- 
thing, and that which he remembers is called the ob- 
ject of his remembrance. In this, memory agrees with 
perception, but differs from sensation, which has no 
object but the feeling itself. Every man can distin- 
guish the thing remembered from the remembrance of 
it. We may remember any thing which we have seen, 
or heard, or known, or done, or suffered ; but the re- 

* An immediate knowledge of a past thing is a contradiction. For we 
can only know a thing immediately, if we know it in itself, or as existing ; 
but what is past cannot be known in itself, for it is non-existent. In this 
respect memory differs from perception. — H. 



212 MEMORY. 

membrance of it is a particular act of the mind which 
now exists, and of which we are conscious. To con- 
found these two is an absurdity, which a thinking man 
could not be led into, but by some false hypothesis 
which hinders him from reflecting upon the thing which 
he would explain by it. 

In memory we do not find such a train of operations 
connected by our constitution as in perception. When 
we perceive an object by our senses, there is, first, some 
impression made by the object upon the organ of sense, 
either immediately or by means of some medium. By 
this, an impression is made upon the nerves and brain, 
in consequence of which we feel some sensation, and 
that sensation is attended by that conception and belief 
of the external object which we call perception. These 
operations are so connected in our constitution, that it 
is difficult to disjoin them in our conceptions, and to 
attend to each without confounding it with the others. 
But in the operations of memory we are free from this 
embarrassment; they are easily distinguished from all 
other acts of the mind, and the names which denote 
them are free from all ambiguity. Again, the object 
of memory, or thing remembered, must be something 
that is past; as the object of perception and of con- 
sciousness must be something which is present. What 
now is cannot be an object of memory ; neither can 
that which is past and gone be an object of perception 
or of consciousness. 

Memory is always accompanied with the belief of 
that which we remember, as perception is accompanied 
with the belief of that which we perceive, and con- 
sciousness with the belief of that whereof we are con- 
scious. Perhaps in infancy, or in a disorder of mind, 
things remembered may be confounded with those 
which are merely imagined ; but in mature years, and 
in a sound state of mind, every man feels that he must 
believe what he distinctly remembers, though he can 
give no other reason of his belief, but that he remem- 
bers the thing distinctly ; whereas, when he merely 
imagines a thing ever so distinctly, he has no belief of 
it upon that account. 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 213 

This belief, which we have from distinct memory, we 
account real knowledge, no less certain than if it was 
grounded on demonstration ; no man in his wits calls 
it in question, or will hear any argument against it. 
The testimony of witnesses in causes of life and death 
depends upon it, and all the knowledge of mankind of 
past events is built on this foundation. There are 
cases in which a man's memory is less distinct and 
determinate, and where he is ready to allow that it 
may have failed him ; but this does not in the least 
weaken its credit, when it is perfectly distinct. 

Things remembered must be things formerly per- 
ceived or known. I remember the transit of Venus 
over the sun in the year 1769. I must therefore have 
perceived it at the time it happened, otherwise I could 
not now remember it. Our first acquaintance with 
any object of thought cannot be by remembrance. 
Memory can only produce a continuance or renewal *of 
a former acquaintance with the thing remembered. 
The remembrance of a past event is necessarily accom- 
panied with the conviction of our own existence at the 
time the event happened. I cannot remember a thing 
that happened a year ago, without a conviction as 
strong as memory can give, that I, the same identical 
person who now remember that event, did then exist.* 

* Mr. James Mill thus analyzes a fact of memory : — "I remember to 
have seen and heard George the Third, when making a speech at the open- 
ing of his Parliament. In this remembrance there is, first of all, the 
mere idea, or simple apprehension — the conception, as it is sometimes 
called — of the objects. There is combined with this, to make it memory, 
my idea of my having seen and heard those objects. And this combina- 
tion is so close, that it is not in my power to separate them. I cannot have 
the idea of George the Third, — his person and attitude, the paper he held 
in his hand, the sound of his voice while reading it, the throne, the apart- 
ment, the audience, — without having the other idea along with it, that of 
my having been a witness of the scene. 

" Now in this last-mentioned part of the compound, it is easy to per- 
ceive two important elements : the idea of my present self, the remembering 
self; and the idea of my past self the remembered or witnessing self. 
These two ideas stand at the two ends of a portion of my being ; that is, 
• of a series of my states of consciousness. That series consists of the suc- 
cessive states of my consciousness intervening between the moment of 
perception, or the past moment, and the moment of memory, or the pres- 
ent moment. What happens at the moment of memory ? The mind 



214 MEMORY. 

II. Distinction between Memory and Reminiscence or 
Recollection.] Here it is proper to take notice of a 
distinction which Aristotle makes between memory and 
reminiscence, because the distinction has a real founda- 
tion in nature, though in our language I think we do 
not distinguish them by different names. 

Memory is a kind of habit which is not always in 
exercise with regard to things we remember, but is 
ready to suggest them when there is occasion. The 
most perfect degree of this habit is, when the thing pre- 
sents itself to our remembrance spontaneously, and without 
labor, as often as there is occasion. A second degree is, 
when the thing is forgotten for a longer or shorter time, 
even when there is occasion to remember it, yet at last 
some incident brings it to mind without any search. A 
third degree is, when we cast about and search for what 
we would remember, and so at last find it out. It is this 
last, I think, which Aristotle calls reminiscence, as dis- 
tinguished from memory. 

Reminiscence, therefore, includes a will to recollect 
something past, and a search for it. But here a diffi- 
culty occurs. It may be said, that what we will to 
remember we must conceive, as there can be no will 
without a conception of the thing willed. A will to 
remember a thing, therefore, seems to imply that we 
remember it already, and have no occasion to search 
for it. But this difficulty is easily removed. When 
we will to remember a thing, we must remember some- 
thing relating to it, which gives us a relative conception 
of it ; but we may, at the same time, have no concep- 
tion what the thing is, but only what relation it bears 
to something else. Thus, I remember that a friend 
charged me with a commission to be executed at such 
a place ; but I have forgotten what the commission 

runs back from that moment to the moment of perception. That is to 
say, it runs over the intervening states of consciousness, called up by 
association. But to run over a number of states of consciousness, called, 
up by association, is but another mode of saying that we associate them ; 
and in this case we associate them so rapidly and closely, that they run, as 
it were, into a single point of consciousness, to which the name of memory 
is assigned." Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap. X. — Ed. 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 215 

was. By applying my thought to what I remember 
concerning it, that it was given by such a person, upon 
such an occasion, in consequence of such a conversa- 
tion, I am led, in a train of thought, to the very thing 
I had forgotten, and recollect distinctly what the com- 
mission was. 

Aristotle says, that brutes have not reminiscence, and 
this I think is probable ; but, says he, they have mem- 
ory. It cannot, indeed, be doubted but they have 
something very like to it, and in some instances in a , 
very great degree. A dog knows his master after long 
absence. A horse will trace back a road he ha's once 
gone, as accurately as a man ; and this is the more 
strange, that the train of thought which he had in 
going must be reversed in his return. It is very like to 
some prodigious memories we read of, where a person, 
upon hearing a hundred names or unconnected words 
pronounced, can begin at the last, and go backwards to 
the first, without losing or misplacing one. Brutes cer- 
tainly may learn much from experience, which seems 
to imply memory. 

Yet I see no reason to think that brutes measure 
time as men do, by days, months, or years, or that they 
have any distinct knowledge of the interval between 
things which they remember, or of their distance from 
the present moment. If we could not record transac- 
tions according to their dates, human memory would 
be something very different from what it is, and per- 
haps resemble more the memory of brutes. 

III. Memory an Original and Ultimate Ground of 
Belief.] Memory is an original faculty, given us by 
the Author of our being, of which we can give no ac- 
count, but that we are so made.* 

The knowledge which I have of things past by my 

* From this most modern psychologists dissent. The Hartleian school 
resolve memory into the association of ideas. Dr. Brown, Philosophy of 
the Human Mind. Lect. XLI., into " a particular suggestion comhincd with 
a feeling of the relation of priority." Even Mr. Stewart, Elements, Part I. 
Chap.. VII., resolves "the memory of events" into a conception and a 
judgment. — Ed. 



216 MEMORY. 

memory seems to me as unaccountable as an immedi- 
ate knowledge would be of things to come,* and I can 
give no reason why I should have the one and not the 
other, but that such is the will of my Maker. I find in 
my mind a distinct conception and a firm belief of a 
series of past events ; but how this is produced I know 
not. I call it memory, but this is only giving a name 
to it ; it is not an account of its cause. I believe most 
firmly what I distinctly remember ; but I can give no 
reason of this belief. It is the inspiration of the Al- 
mighty that gives me this understanding. 

When I believe the truth of a mathematical axiom, 
or of a mathematical proposition, I see that it must be 
so. Every man who has the same conception of it 
sees the same. There is a necessary and an evident 
connection between the subject and the predicate of 
the proposition ; and I have all the evidence to support 
my belief which I can possibly conceive. 

When I believe that I washed my hands and face 
this morning, there appears no necessity in the truth of 
this proposition. It might be, or it might not be. A 
man may distinctly conceive it without believing it at 
all. How, then, do I come to believe it ? I remember 
it distinctly. This is all I can say. This remembrance 
is an act of my mind. Is it impossible that this act 
should be, if the event had not happened ? I confess I 
do not see any necessary connection between the one 
and the other. If any man can show such a necessary 
connection, then I think that belief which we have of 
what we remember will be fairly accounted for ; but if 
this cannot be done, that belief is unaccountable, and 
we can say no more than that it is the result of our con- 
stitution. 



* An immediate knowledge of things to come is equally a contradiction 
with an immediate knowledge of things past. See note on p. 211. But if, 
as Reid himself allows, memory depends upon certain enduring affections 
of the brain, determined by cognition, it seems a strange assertion, on this 
as on other accounts, that the possibility of a knowledge of the future is 
not more inconceivable than of a knowledge of the past. Maupertuis, 
however, has advanced a similar doctrine ; and some, also, of the advo- 
cates of animal magnetism. — H. 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS, 217 

Perhaps it may be said, that the experience we have 
had of the fidelity of memory is a good reason for rely- 
ing upon its testimony. I deny not that this may be a 
reason to those who have had this experience, and who 
reflect upon it. But I believe there are few who ever 
thought of this reason, or who found any need of it. 
It must be some very rare occasion that leads a man to 
have recourse to it ; and in those who have done so, the 
testimony of memory was believed before the experi- 
ence of its fidelity, and that belief could not be caused 
by the experience which came after it. 

"We know some abstract truths, by comparing the 
terms of the proposition which expresses them, and 
perceiving some necessary relation or agreement be- 
tween them. It is thus I know that two and three 
make five ; that the diameters of a circle are all equal. 
Mr. Locke, having discovered this source of knowledge, 
too rashly concluded that all human knowledge might 
be derived from it ; and in this he has been followed 
very generally, — by Mr. Hume in particular. But I 
apprehend that our knowledge of the existence of things 
contingent can never be traced to this source. I know 
that such a thing exists, or did exist. This knowledge 
cannot be derived from the perception of a necessary 
agreement between existence and the thing that exists, 
because there is no such necessary agreement ; and 
therefore no such agreement can be perceived either 
immediately, or by a chain of reasoning. The thing 
does not exist necessarily, but by the will and power 
of him that made it; and there is no contradiction fol- 
lows from supposing it not to exist. Whence I think 
it follows, that our knowledge of the existence of our 
own thoughts, of the existence of all the material ob- 
jects about us, and of all past contingencies, must be 
derived, not from a perception of necessary relations or 
agreements, but from some other source. 

Our Maker has provided other means for giving us 
the knowledge of these things, — means which per- 
fectly answer their end, and produce the effect intended 
by them. But in what manner they do this is, I fear, 
19 



218 MEMORY. 

beyond our skill to explain. We know our own 
thoughts, and the operations of our minds, by a power 
which we call consciousness : but this is only giving a 
name to this part of our frame. It does not explain 
its fabric, nor how it produces in us an irresistible con- 
viction of its informations. We perceive material 
objects and their sensible qualities by our senses ; but 
how they give us this information, and how they 
produce our belief in it, we know not. We know 
many past events by memory; but how it gives this 
information, I believe, is inexplicable. 

IV. Physiological Theories to account for Memory.] 
The theory of the Peripatetics is expressed by Alexan- 
der Aphrodisiensis, one of the earliest Greek commenta- 
tors on Aristotle, in these words, as they are translated 
by Mr. Harris, in his Hermes :* — " Now what phansy 
or imagination is, we may explain as follows: — We 
may conceive to be formed within us, from the opera- 
tions of our senses about sensible objects, some im- 
pression, as it were, or picture, in our original sensori- 
um, being a- relic of that motion caused within us by the 
external object; a relic, which, when the external ob- 
ject is no longer present, remains, and is still preserved, 
being as it were its image, and which, by being thus 
preserved, becomes the cause of our having memory: 
now such a sort of relict, and, as it were, impression, 
they call phansy or imagination." 

Another passage from Alcinous, Of the Doctrines of 
Plato, Chap. IV., shows the agreement of the ancient 
Platonists and Peripatetics in this theory : — " When 
the form or type of things is imprinted on the mind by 
the organs of the senses, and so imprinted as not to be 
deleted by time, but preserved firm and lasting, its pres- 
ervation is called memory? 

Upon this principle Aristotle imputes the shortness 
of memory in children to this cause, that their brain is 
too moist and soft to retain impressions made upon it ; 

* Book in. Chap. IV. 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 219 

and the defect of memory in old men he imputes, on 
the contrary, to the hardness and rigidity of the brain, 
which hinders its receiving' any durable impression.* 

This ancient theory of the cause of memory is de- 
fective in two respects: — first, if the cause assigned did 
really exist, it by no means accounts for the phenome- 



* In this whole statement Reid is wrong. In the, first place Aristotle did 
not impute the defect of memory in children and old persons to any con- 
stitution of the brain; for, in his doctrine, the heart, and not the brain, is 
the primary sensorium in which the impression is made. In the second 
place, the term impression (twos) is used by Aristotle in an analogical, not 
in a literal, signification. See Note K. — H. 

For a full account of Aristotle's doctrine respecting memory and rem- 
iniscence, see Barth. St. Hilaire's translation of the Parva Natvralia, 
making the second volume of his Psychologie aVAristote. In the preface, 
the translator, after reviewing what has been written in modern times on 
the subject of memory, comes to this conclusion : that Aristotle was the 
first who studied the faculty scientifically, and that his treatise, after the 
lapse of twenty-two centuries, is still the most complete and the most 
exact. 

At the same time, we are not to suppose that physiological theories to 
explain and account for memory have never been entertained to which the 
strictures in the text apply. As, for example, to " the decaying sense " 
of Hobbes, Leviathan, Part I. Chap. II. Malebranche pushes his invention 
still farther. 

His words are : — " For the explanation of memory it is necessary to re- 
member what has been repeated so many times, — that all our different 
perceptions depend upon the changes that happen to those fibres that are 
in that part of the brain in which the soul more particularly resides. 
This being supposed, the nature of memory is explained : for even as the 
branches of a tree, which have continued some time bent in a certain form, 
still preserve an aptitude to be bent anew after the same manner, so the 
fibres of the brain, having once received certain impressions by the course 
of the animal spirits, and by the action of objects, retain a long time some 
facility to receive these same dispositions. Now the memory consists only 
in this faculty, since we think on the same things when the" brain receives 
the same impressions." 

A little farther on, he thinks to explain how the susceptibilities of the 
mind in this respect are affected by age : — " The most considerable dif- 
ferences that are found in a man's brain, during the whole course of his 
life, are in infancy, at his full strength, and in old age. The fibres of the 
brain in children are soft, flexible, and delicate ; a riper age dries, hardens 
and strengthens them ; but in old age they become wholly inflexible, gross, 
and sometimes mingled with superfluous humors that "the feeble heat of 
this age cannot dissipate. For as we see the fibres which compose the flesh 
harden by time, and that the flesh of a young partridge is without dis- 
pute more tender than that of an old one, so the fibres of the brain of a 
child or youth will be much more soft and delicate than those of persona 
more advanced in years." Search after Truth, Book II. Chap. V. and VI.- 
where there is more to the same purpose. — Ed. 



220 



MEMORY. 



non ; and, secondly, there is no evidence, nor even 
probability, that that cause exists. 

It is probable, that in perception some impression is 
made upon the brain, as well as upon the organ and 
nerves, because all the nerves terminate in the brain, 
and because disorders and hurts of the brain are found 
to affect our powers of perception when the external 
organ and nerve are sound; but we are totally ignorant 
of the nature of this impression upon the brain : it can 
have no resemblance to the object perceived, nor does 
it in any degree account for that sensation and percep- 
tion which are consequent upon it. These things have 
been argued in the second Essay, and shall now be 
taken for granted to prevent repetition. 

If the impression upon the brain be insufficient to 
account for the perception of objects that are present, 
it can as little account for the memory of those that 
are past. So that if it were certain that the impres- 
sions made on the brain in perception remain as long 
as there is any memory of the object, all that could be 
inferred from this is, that, by the laws of nature, there 
is a connection established between that impression 
and the remembrance of that object. But how the 
impression contributes to this remembrance, we should 
be quite ignorant ; it being impossible to discover how 
thought of any kind should be produced by an impres- 
sion on the brain or upon any part of the body. 

To say that this impression is memory is absurd, if 
understood literally. If it is only meant that it is the 
cause of memory, it ought to be shown how it produces 
this effect, otherwise memory remains as unaccounta- 
ble as before. If a philosopher should undertake to 
account for the force of gunpowder in the discharge of 
a musket,, and then tell us gravely that the cause of 
this phenomenon is the drawing of the trigger, we 
should not be much wiser by this account. As little 
are we instructed in the cause of memory, by being 
told that it is caused by a certain impression on the 
brain. For, supposing that impression on the brain 
were as necessary to memory as the drawing of the 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 



221 



% 



trigger is to the discharge of the musket, we are still as 
ignorant as we were how memory is produced ; so that 
if the cause of memory assigned by this theory did 
really exist, it does not in any degree account for 
memory. 

Another defect in this theory is, that there is no evi- 
dence nor probability that the cause assigned does 
exist ; that is, that the impression made upon the 
brain in perception remains after the object is removed. 

That impression, whatever be its nature, is caused 
by the impression made by the object upon the organ 
of sense and upon the nerve. Philosophers suppose, 
without any evidence, that when the object is removed, 
and the impression upon the organ and nerve ceases, 
the impression upon the brain continues and is perma- 
nent; that is, that when the cause is removed, the 
effect continues. The brain surely does not appear 
more fitted to retain an impression than the organ and 
nerve. But granting that the impression upon the 
brain continues after its cause is removed, its effects 
ought to continue while it continues ; that is, the sen- 
sation and perception should be as permanent as the 
impression upon the brain which is supposed to be 
their cause. But here again the philosopher makes a 
second supposition, with as little evidence, but of a 
contrary nature, — to wit, that while the cause remains, 
the effect ceases. If this should be granted also, a third 
must be made, — that the same cause, which at first 
produced sensation and perception, does afterwards 
produce memory, — an operation essentially different 
both from sensation and perception. Again, a fourth 
supposition must be made, — that this cause, though it 
be permanent, does not produce its effect at all limes ; 
it must be like an inscription which is sometimes 
covered with rubbish, and on other occasions made 
legible : for the memory of things is often interrupted 
for a long time, and circumstances bring to our recol- 
lection what has been long forgot. After all, many 
things are remembered which were never perceived by 
the senses, being no objects of sense, and, therefore, 
19* 



222 MEMORY. 

which could make no impression upon the brain by 
means of the senses. 

Thus, when philosophers have piled one supposition 
upon another, as the giants piled the mountains in 
order to scale the heavens, all is to no purpose, mem- 
ory remains unaccountable ; and we know as little how 
we remember things past as how we are conscious of 
the present. 

But here it is proper to observe, that although im- 
pressions upon the brain give no aid in accounting for 
memory, yet it is very probable, that, in the human 
frame, memory is dependent on some proper state or 
temperament of the brain. 

Although the furniture of our memory bears no re- 
semblance to any temperament of brain whatsoever, as, 
indeed, it is impossible it should, yet nature may have 
subjected us to this law, that a certain constitution or 
state of the brain is necessary to memory. That this 
is really the case, many well-known facts lead us to 
conclude. It is possible, that, by accurate observation, 
the proper means may be discovered of preserving that 
temperament of the brain which is favorable to mem- 
ory, and of remedying the disorders of that tempera- 
ment. This would be a very noble improvement of ihe 
medical art. But if it should ever be attained, it would 
give no aid to understand how one state of the brain 
assists memory, and another hurts it. 

I know certainly that the impression made upon my 
hand by the prick of a pin occasions acute pain. But 
can any philosopher show how this cause produces the 
effect ? The nature of the impression is here perfectly 
known ; but it gives no help to understand how that 
impression affects the mind; and if we know as dis- 
tinctly that state of the brain which causes memory, 
we should still be as ignorant as before how that state 
contributes to memory. We might have been so con- 
stituted, for any thing that I know, that the prick of a 
pin in the hand, instead of causing pain, should cause 
remembrance ; nor would that constitution be more 
unaccountable than the present. The body and mind 



* 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 223 

operate on each other, according to fixed laws of nature; 
and it is the business of a philosopher to discover those 
laws by observation and experiment. But when he 
has discovered them, he must rest in them as facts 
whose cause is inscrutable to the human understand- 
ing.* 

* One of the most instructive cases of the influence of the state of the 
body, or more particularly of the nervous system, on the memory, is re- 
lated by Coleridge in his Bioyraplua Literaria, Chap. VI., which we shall 
give in his own words : — "A case of this kind occurred in a Catholic 
town in Germany, a year or two before my arrival at Gottingen, and had 
not then ceased to be a frequent subject of conversation. A young woman 
of four or five and twenty, who could neither read nor write, was seized 
with a nervous fever ; during which, according to the asseverations of all 
the priests and monks of the neighbourhood, she became possessed, and, as 
it appeared, by a learned devil. She continued incessantly talking Latin, 
Greek, and Hebrew, in very pompous tones, and with most distinct enun- 
ciation. This possession was rendered most probable by the known fact 
that she was, or had been, a heretic. Voltaire humorously advises the 
Devil to decline all acquaintance with medical men ; and it would have 
been more to his reputation if he had taken this advice in the present in- 
stance. The case had attracted the particular attention of a young phy- 
sician, and, led by his statement, many eminent physiologists and psycholo- 
gists visited the town, and cross-examined the case on the spot. Sheets full 
of her ravings were taken down from her own mouth, and were found to 
consist of sentences coherent and intelligible each for itself, but with little 
or no connection with each other. Of the Hebrew, a small portion only 
could be traced to the Bible ; the remainder seemed to be in the rabbinical 
dialect. All trick or conspiracy was out of the question. Not only had 
the young woman ever been a harmless simple creature, but she was evi- 
dently laboring under a nervous fever. In the town in which she had been 
resident for many years, as a servant in different families, no solution pre- 
sented itself. The young physician, however, determined to trace her past 
life step by step ; for the patient herself was incapable of returning a 
rational answer. He, at length, succeeded in discovering the place where 
her parents had lived ; travelled thither, found them dead, but an uncle 
surviving ; and from him learnt that the patient had been charitably taken 
by an old Protestant pastor at nine years old, and had remained with him 
some years, even till the old man's death. Of this pastor the uncle knew 
nothing, but that he was a very good man. With great difficult}-, and 
after much search, our young medical philosopher discovered a niece of 
the pastor's, who had lived with him as his housekeeper, and had inherited 
his effects. She remembered the girl; related, that her venerable uncle 
had been too indulgent, and could not bear to hear the girl scolded ; that 
she was willing to have kept her, but that, after her patron's death, the girl 
herself refused to stay. Anxious inquiries were then, of course, made con- 
cerning the pastor's habits, and the solution of the phenomenon was soon 
obtained. For it appeared, that it had been the old man's custom for years 
to walk up and down a passage of his house, into which the kitchcndoor 
opened, and to read to himself, with a loud voice, out of his favorite books. 
A considerable number of these were still in the niece's possession. She 



224 



MEMORY. 



V. Hume's View of Memory.] Mr. Hume saw far- 
ther into the consequences of the common system con- 
cerning ideas, than any author had done before him. 
He saw the absurdity of making every object of thought 
double, and splitting it into a remote object, which has 
a separate and permanent existence, and an immediate 
object, called an idea, or impression, which is an image 
of the former, and has no existence but when we are 
conscious of it. According to this system, we have 
no intercourse with the external world but by means of 
the internal world of ideas, which represents the other 
to the mind. 

He saw it was necessary to reject one of these worlds 
as a fiction, and the question was, which should be re- 
jected ; — whether all mankind, learned and unlearned, 
had feigned the existence of the external world without 
good reason, or whether philosophers had feigned the 
internal world of ideas, in order to account for the in- 
tercourse of the mind with the external. Mr. Hume 
adopted the first of these opinions, and employed his 
reason and eloquence in support of it. 

According to his system, therefore, impressions and 

added that he was a very learned man, and a great Hebraist. Among the 
books were found a collection of rabbinical writings, together with several 
of the Greek and Latin fathers ; and the physician succeeded in identify- 
ing so many passages with those taken down at the young woman's bed- 
side, that no doubt could remain in any rational mind concerning the true 
origin of the impressions made on her nervous system." 

From the foregoing the author deduces an important and startling infer- 
ence : — " This authenticated case furnishes both proof and instance that 
relics of sensation may exist, for an indefinite time, in a latent state, in the 
very same order in which they were originally impressed ; and as we can- 
not rationally suppose the feverish state of the brain to act in any other 
way than as a stimulus, this fact (and it would not be difficult to adduce 
several of the same kind) contributes to make it even probable that all 
thoughts are in themselves imperishable; and that if the intelligent faculty 
should be rendered more comprehensive, it would require only a different 
and apportioned organization, — the body celestial instead of the body terres- 
trial, — to bring before every human soul the collective experience of its ivhole 
past existence. And this, — this, perchance, is the dread book of judgment, 
in whose mysterious hieroglyphics every idle word is recorded ! " 

I would add that Dr. Abercrombie, in his Inquiries concerning the Intel- 
lectual Poioers, is naturally led by his professional experience to dwell more 
than is usual with psychologists on memory as affected by peculiar states 
of the organization. — Ed. 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 



225 



ideas in his own mind are the only things a man can 
know, or can conceive. Nor are these ideas representa- 
tives, as they were in the old system. There is nothing 
else in nature, or at least within the reach of our facul- 
ties, to be represented. What the vulgar call the per- 
ception of an external object, is nothing but a strong 
impression upon the mind. What we call the remem- 
brance of a past event, is nothing but a present impres- 
sion or idea, weaker than the former. And what we 
call imagination is still a present" idea, but weaker than 
that of memory. 

That I may not do him injustice, these are his words 
in his Treatise of Human Nature, Book I. Part I. Sect. 
III. : — " We find by experience, that, when any impres- 
sion has been present with the mind, it again makes its 
appearance there as an idea ; and this it may do after 
two different ways : either when in its new appearance 
it retains a considerable degree of its first vivacity, and 
is somewhat intermediate betwixt an impression and 
an idea ; or when it entirely loses that vivacity, and is 
a perfect idea. The faculty by which we repeat our 
impressions in the first manner is called the memory, 
and the other the imagination." 

Upon this account of memory and imagination, I 
shall make some remarks. 

First, I wish to know what we are here to under- 
stand by experience. It is said, we find all this by ex- 
perience ; and I conceive nothing can be meant by this 
experience but memory. Not that memory which our 
author defines, but memory in the common acceptation 
of the word. He maintains that memory is nothing 
but a present idea or impression. But, in denning 
what he takes memory to be, he takes for granted that 
kind of memory which he rejects. For can we find by 
experience, that an impression, after its first appearance 
to the mind, makes a second, and a third, with different 
degrees of strength and vivacity, if we have not so 
distinct a remembrance of its first appearance as en- 
ables us to know it upon its second and third, notwith- 
standing that, in the interval, it has undergone a very 



226 MEMORY. 

considerable change ? All experience supposes mem- 
ory ; and there can be no such thing as experience, 
without trusting to our own memory, or that of others : 
so that it appears from Mr. Hume's account of this 
matter, that he found himself to have that kind of 
memory which he acknowledges and defines, by exer- 
cising that kind which he rejects. 

Secondly, What is it we find by experience or mem- 
ory ? It is, " that, when an impression has been present 
with the mind, it again makes its appearance there as 
an idea, and that after two different ways." 

If experience informs us of this, it certainly deceives 
us ; for the thing is impossible, and the author shows 
it to be so. Impressions and ideas are fleeting, perish- 
able things, which have no existence but when we are 
conscious of them. If an impression could make a 
second and a third appearance to the mind, it must 
have a continued existence during the interval of these 
appearances, which Mr. Hume acknowledges to be a 
gross absurdity. It seems, then, that we find, by ex- 
perience, a thing which is impossible. We are imposed 
upon by our experience, and made to believe contradic- 
tions. 

Perhaps it may be said, that these different appear- 
ances of the impression are not to be understood liter- 
ally, but figuratively ; that the impression is personified, 
and made to appear at different times, and in different 
habits, when no more is meant but that an impression 
appears at one time ; afterwards a thing of a middle 
nature, between an impression and an idea, which we 
call memory; and last of all a perfect idea, which we 
call imagination : that this figurative meaning agrees 
best with the last sentence of the period, where we are 
told that memory and imagination are faculties, where- 
by we repeat our impressions in a more or less lively 
manner. To repeat an impression is a figurative way 
of speaking, which signifies making a new impression 
similar to the former. 

If, to avoid the absurdity implied in the literal mean- 
ing, we understand the philosopher in this figurative 



ITS NATURE AND FUNCTIONS. 227 

one, then his definitions of memory and imagination, 
when stripped of the figurative dress, will amount to 
this, — that memory is the faculty of making a weak 
impression, and imagination the faculty of making an 
impression still weaker, after a corresponding strong 
one. These definitions of memory and imagination 
labor under two defects : first, that they convey no no- 
tion of the thing defined ; and, secondly, that they may 
be applied to things of a quite different nature from 
those that are defined. 

When we are said -to have a faculty of making a 
weak impression after a corresponding strong one, it 
would not be easy to conjecture that this faculty is 
memory. Suppose a man strikes his head smartly 
against the wall, this is an impression ; now he has a 
faculty by which he can repeat this impression with less 
force, so as not to hurt him ; this, by Mr. Hume's ac- 
count, must be memory. He has a faculty by which 
he can just touch the wall with his head, so that the 
impression entirely loses its vivacity. This surely must 
be imagination ; at least it comes as near to the defi- 
nition given of it by Mr. Hume as any thing I can con- 
ceive. 

Thirdly, We may observe, that, when we are told 
that we have a faculty of repeating our impressions in 
a more or less lively manner, this implies that ive are 
the efficient causes of our ideas of memory and imagi- 
nation ; but this contradicts what the author says a 
little before, where he proves, by what he calls a con- 
vincing argument, that impressions are the cause of 
their corresponding ideas. The argument that proves 
this had need, indeed, to be very convincing, whether 
we make the idea to be a second appearance of the im- 
pression, or a new impression similar to the former. If 
the first be true, then the impression is the cause of 
itself. If the second, then the impression after it has 
gone, and has no existence, produces the idea.* 



* To the works already cited as treating of memory, we may add Wolf a 
Psycholoyia Empirica, Part I. Sect. II. Chap. V. ; Beattie's Dissertations 






228 MEMORY. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE NATURE AND OKIGIN OE OUR NOTION OP 
DURATION. 

I. Our Notions of Duration, Extension, and Number.] 
From the principles laid down in the preceding chap- 
ter, I think it appears that our notion of duration, as 
well as our belief of it, is got by the faculty of mem- 
ory. It is essential to every thing remembered that it 
be something which is past; and we cannot conceive* a 
thing to be past, without conceiving some duration, 
more or less, between it and the present. As soon, 
therefore, as we remember any thing, w T e must have 
both a notion and a belief of duration. It is necessa- 
rily suggested by every operation of our memory ; and 
to that faculty it ought to be ascribed. This is there- 
fore a proper place to consider what is known concern- 
ing it. 

Duration, extension, and number are the measures of 
all things subject to mensuration. "When we apply 
them to finite things which are measured by them, they 
seem of all things to be the most distinctly conceived, 
and most within the reach of human understanding. 

Extension, having three dimensions, has an endless 
variety of modifications, capable of being accurately 
defined ; and their various relations furnish the human 
mind with its most ample field of demonstrative rea- 
soning. Duration, having only one dimension, has 
fewer modifications ; but these are clearly understood ; 
and their relations admit of measure, proportion, and 
demonstrative reasoning. 

Number is called discrete quantity, because it is com- 
pounded of units, which are all equal and similar, and 

Moral and Critical, the first being Of Memory and Imagination ; Stewart's 
Elements, who has given a long chapter to this subject; and Feinagle's 
New Art of Memory, to which is prefixed some account of the principal 
systems of Artificial Memory. — Ed. 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 229 

it can only be divided into units. This is true, in some 
sense, even of fractions of unity, to which we now 
commonly give the name of number. For in every 
fractional number the unit is supposed to be subdivided 
into a certain number of equal parts, which are the 
units of that denomination, and the fractions of that 
denomination are only divisible into units of the same 
denomination. Duration and extension are not dis- 
crete, but continued quantity. They consist of parts 
perfectly similar, but divisible without end. 

In order to aid our conception of the magnitude and 
proportions of the various intervals of duration, we 
find it necessary to give a name to some known portion 
of it, such as an hour, a day, a year. These we con- 
sider as units, and by the number of them contained in 
a larger interval, we form a distinct conception of its 
magnitude. A similar expedient we find necessary to 
give us a distinct conception of the magnitudes and 
proportions of things extended. Thus, number is found 
necessary, as a common measure of extension and du- 
ration. But this, perhaps, is owing to the weakness of 
our understanding. It has even been discovered by the 
sagacity of mathematicians, that this expedient does 
not in all cases answer its intention. For there are 
proportions of continued quantity, which cannot be 
perfectly expressed by numbers ; such as that be- 
tween the diagonal and side of a square, and many 
others. 

The parts of duration have to other parts of it the 
relations of prior and posterior, and to the present they 
have the relations of past and future. The notion of 
past is immediately suggested by memory, as has been 
before observed. And when we have got the notions 
of present and past, and of prior and posterior, we can 
from these frame a notion of the future ; for the future 
is that which is posterior to the present. Nearness and 
distance are relations equally applicable to time and to 
place. Distance in time, and distance in place, are 
things so different in their nature, and so like in their 
relation, that it is difficult to determine whether the 
20 



230 MEMORY. 

name of distance is applied to both in the same or an 
analogical sense. 

The extension of bodies, which we perceive by our 
senses, leads us necessarily to the conception and belief 
of a space which remains immovable when the body 
is removed. And the duration of events which we re- 
member leads us necessarily to the conception and be- 
lief of a duration, which would have gone on uniformly, 
though the event had never happened.* Without space 
there can be nothing that is extended. And without 
time there can be nothing that has duration. This I 
think undeniable. And yet we find that extension and 
duration are not more clear and intelligible than space 
and time are dark and difficult objects of contempla- 
tion. 

As there must be space wherever any thing extended 
does or can exist, and time when there is or can be any 
thing that has duration, we can set no bounds to either, 
even in our imagination. They defy all limitation. 
The one swells in our conception to immensity, the 
other to eternity. 



* If space and time be necessary generalizations from experience, this is 
contrary to Reid's own doctrine, that experience can give us no necessary 
knowledge If, again, they be necessary and original notions, the account of 
their origin here given is incorrect. It should have been said that experi- 
ence is not the source of their existence, but only the occasion of their man- 
ifestation. On this subject, see, instar omnium. Cousin on Locke, in his 
Coins cle Philosophic, Tome II. Lemons XVII., XVIII. This admirable 
work has been well translated into English by an American philosopher. 
Mr. Henry; but the eloquence and precision of the author can only be 
properly appreciated by those who study the work in the original language. 
The reader may, however, consult likewise Stewart's Philosophical Essays, 
Essay II. Chap. II. ; and Royer-Collard's Fragments, IX. and X. These 
authors, from their more limited acquaintance with the speculations of the 
German philosophers, are, however, less on a level with the problem. — H. 

There can be no doubt that Reid held space and time to be " necessary 
and original notions." His language may sometimes be inexact; but we 
are not aware that he ever makes experience " the source " of our notion 
of time ; when he speaks of experience as necessary to our having this 
notion, he has in view the chronological, and not the logical, order of our 
knowledge. Farther on he says more explicitly, — "I know of no ideas 
or notions that have a better claim to be accounted simple and original, than 
those of space and ;»ne." And, again, he says of time, — " As it is one of 
the simplest objects of thought, the conception of it must be purely the effect 
of our constitution, and given us by some original power of the mind." — Ed. 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 231 

An eternity past is an object which we cannot com- 
prehend ; but a beginning of time, unless we take it in 
a figurative sense, is a contradiction. By a common 
figure of speech, we give the name of time to those 
motions and revolutions by which we measure it, such 
as days and years. We can conceive a beginning of 
these sensible measures of time, and say that there was 
a time when they were not, a time undistinguished, by 
any motion or change; but to say that there was a 
time before all time is a contradiction. 

All limited duration is comprehended in time, and 
all limited extension in space. These, in their capa- 
cious womb, contain all finite existences, but are con- 
tained by none. Created things have their particular 
place in space, and their particular place in time ; but 
time is everywhere, and space at all times. They em- 
brace each the other, and have that mysterious union 
which the schoolmen conceive between soul and body. 
The whole of each is in every part of the other. 

We are at a loss to what category, or class of things, 
we ought to refer them. They are not beings, but 
rather the receptacles of every created being, without 
which it could not have had the possibility of existence. 
Philosophers have endeavoured to reduce all the ob- 
jects of human thought to these three classes, sub- 
stances, modes, and relations. To which of them shall 
we refer time, space, and number, the most common 
objects of thought ? 

Sir Isaac Newton thought that the Deity, by existing 
everywhere, and at all times, constitutes time and space, 
immensity and eternity. This probably suggested to 
his great friend, Dr. Clarke, what he calls the argument 
a priori for the existence of an immense and eternal 
Being. Space and time, he thought, are only abstract 
or partial conceptions of an immensity and eternity 
which force themselves upon our belief. And as im- 
mensity and eternity are not substances, they must be 
the attributes of a Being who is necessarily immense 
and eternal. These are the speculations of men of 
superior genius. But whether they be as solid as they 



232 MEMORY. 

are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of im- 
agination in a region beyond the limits of human 
understanding, I am unable to determine. 

The schoolmen made eternity to be a nunc starts, — 
that is, a moment of time that stands still. This was 
to put a spoke into the wheel of time, and might give 
satisfaction to those who are to be satisfied by words 
without meaning. But I can as easily believe a circle 
to be a square, as time to stand still. 

Such paradoxes and riddles, if I may so call them, 
men are involuntarily led into when they reason about 
time and space, and attempt to comprehend their na- 
ture. They are probably things of which the human 
faculties give an imperfect and inadequate conception. 
Hence difficulties arise which we in vain attempt to 
overcome, and doubts which we are unable to resolve. 
Perhaps some faculty which we possess not is necessa- 
ry to remove the darkness which hangs over them, and 
makes us so apt to bewilder ourselves when we reason 
about them. 

II. Locke's Account of the Origin of Ideas.] It was 
a very laudable attempt of Mr. Locke " to inquire into 
the original of those ideas, notions, or whatever else 
you please to call them, which a man observes, and is 
conscious to himself he has in his mind, and the ways 
whereby the understanding comes to be furnished with 
them." No man was better qualified for this investiga- 
tion ; and I believe no man ever engaged in it with a 
more sincere love of truth. His success, though great, 
would, I apprehend, have been greater, if he had not 
too early formed a system or hypothesis upon this sub- 
ject, without all the caution and patient induction 
which are necessary in drawing general conclusions 
from facts. 

The sum of his doctrine I take to be this : — That 
all our ideas or notions may be reduced to two classes, 
the simple and the complex ; that the simple are purely 
the work of nature, the understanding being merely 
passive in receiving them, that they are all suggested by 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 233 

two powers of the mind, — to wit, sensation and reflec- 
tion, — and that they are the materials of all our knowl- 
edge; that the other class, consisting of complex ideas, 
are formed by the understanding itself, which, being 
once stored with simple ideas of sensation and reflec- 
tion, has the power to repeat, to compare, and to com- 
bine them even to an almost infinite variety, and so 
can make at pleasure new complex ideas ; but that it 
is not in the power of the most exalted wit, or enlarged 
understanding, by any quickness or variety of thought, 
to invent or frame one new simple idea in the mind, 
not taken in by the two ways before mentioned. As 
our power over the material world reaches only to the 
compounding, dividing, and putting together, in vari- 
ous forms, the matter which God has made, but reach- 
es not to the production or annihilation of a single 
atom, so we may compound, compare, and abstract the 
original and simple ideas which nature has given us, 
but are unable to fashion in our understanding any 
simple idea, not received in by our senses from exter- 
nal objects, or by reflection from the operations of our 
own mind about them. 

Mr. Locke says, that by reflection he would be un- 
derstood to mean " the notice which the mind takes of 
its own operations, and the manner of them." This, 
I think, we commonly call consciousness ; from which, 
indeed, we derive all the notions we have of the opera- 
tions of our own minds ; and he often speaks of the 
operations of our own minds as the only objects of 
reflection. When reflection is taken in this confined 
sense, to say that all our ideas are ideas either of sen- 
sation or reflection is to say that every thing we can 
conceive is either some object of sense, or some opera- 
tion of our own minds; which is far from being true. 

But the word reflection is commonly used in a much 
more extensive sense ; it is applied to many operations 
of the mind with more propriety than to that of con- 
sciousness. We reflect, when we remember or call to 
mind what is past, and survey it with attention. We 
reflect, when we define, when we distinguish, when 
20* 






234 MEMORY. 

we judge, when we reason, whether about things ma- 
terial or intellectual. When reflection is taken in this 
sense, which is more common, and therefore more 
proper,* than the sense which Mr. Locke has put upon 
it, it may be justly said to be the only source of all our 
distinct and accurate notions of things. For, although 
our first notions of material things are got by the ex- 
ternal senses, and our first notions of the operations 
of our own minds by consciousness, these first notions 
are neither simple nor clear. Our senses and our con- 
sciousness are continually shifting from one object to 
another ; their operations are transient and momentary, 
and leave no distinct notion of their objects, until they 
are recalled by memory, examined with attention, and 
compared with other things. 

This reflection is not one power of the mind ; it com- 
prehends many ; such as recollection, attention, distin- 
guishing, comparing, judging. By these powers our 
minds are furnished, not only with many simple and 
original notions, but with all our notions which are 
accurate and well defined, and which alone are the 
proper materials of reasoning. Many of these are 
neither notions of the objects of sense, nor of the 
operations of our own minds, and therefore neither 
ideas of sensation nor of reflection, in the sense that 
Mr. Locke gives to reflection. But if any one chooses 
to call them ideas of reflection, taking the word in 
the more common and proper sense, I have no objec- 
tion. 

Mr. Locke seems to me to have used the word re- 
flection sometimes in that limited sense which he has 
given to it in the definition before mentioned, and 
sometimes to have fallen unawares into the common 
sense of the word ; and by this ambiguity his account 
of the origin of our ideas is darkened and perplexed. 

* This is not correct; and the employment of reflection in another mean- 
ing than that of en torpo^i) 7rp6? eavro, — the reflex knowledge or con- 
sciousness which the mind has of its own affections, — is wholly a secon- 
dary and less proper signification. See Note I. — H. 

On the use of the term reflection, see page 25 of this volume. — En. 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 235 

III. Strictures on Locke's Theory of the Origin of 
the Idea of Duration.'] Having premised these things 
in general of Mr. Locke's theory of the origin of our 
ideas or notions, I proceed to some observations on his 
account of the idea of duration. 

" Reflection," he says, " upon the train of ideas, which 
appear one after another in our minds, is that which 
furnishes us with the idea of succession : and the dis- 
tance between any two parts of that succession is that 
we call duration." 

If it be meant that the idea of succession is prior to 
that of duration, either in time or in the order of 
nature, this, I think, is impossible, because succession, 
as Dr. Price justly observes, presupposes duration, and 
can in no sense be prior to it ; and therefore it would 
be more proper to derive the idea of succession from 
that of duration. 

But how do we get the idea of succession? It is, 
says he, by reflecting " upon the train of ideas, which 
appear one after another in our minds." Reflecting 
upon the train of ideas can be nothing but remember- 
ing it, and giving attention to what our memory testi- 
fies concerning it ; for if we did not remember it, we 
could not have a thought about it. So that it is evi- 
dent that this reflection includes remembrance, without 
which there could be no reflection on what is past, and 
consequently no idea of succession. 

It may also be observed, that, if we speak strictly and 
philosophically, no kind of succession can be an object 
either of the senses or of consciousness ; because the 
operations of both are confined to the present point of 
time, and there can be no succession in a point of time ; 
and on that account the motion of a body, which is a 
successive change of place, could not be observed by 
the senses alone without the aid of memory. 

As this observation seems to contradict the common 
sense and common language of mankind, when they 
affirm that they see a body move, and hold motion to 
be an object of the senses, it is proper to take notice, 
that this contradiction between the philosopher and the 



236 MEMORY. 

vulgar is apparent only, and not real. It arises from 
this, that philosophers and the vulgar differ in the 
meaning they put upon what is called the present time, 
and are thereby led to make a different limit between 
sense and memory. 

Philosophers give the name of present to that indi- 
visible point of time which divides the future from the 
past : but the vulgar find it more convenient, in the 
affairs of life, to give the name of present to a portion 
of time which extends more or less, according to cir- 
cumstances, into the past or the future. Hence we say, 
the present hour, the present year, the present century, 
though one point only of these periods can be present 
in the philosophical sense. 

It has been observed by grammarians, that the pres- 
ent tense in verbs is not confined to an indivisible point- 
of time, but is so far extended as to have a beginning, 
a middle, and an end ; and that, in the most copious 
and accurate languages, these different parts of the 
present are distinguished by different forms of the 
verb. 

As the purposes of conversation make it convenient 
to extend what is called the present, the same reason 
leads men to extend the province of sense, and to carry 
its limit as far back as they carry the present. Thus a 
man may say, I saw such a person just now. It would 
be ridiculous to find fault with this way of speaking, 
because it is authorized by custom, and has a distinct 
meaning : but if we speak philosophically, the senses 
do not testify what we saiv, but only what we see; 
what I saw last moment I consider as the testimony of 
sense, though it is now only the testimony of memory. 
There is no necessity in common life of dividing accu- 
rately the provinces of sense and of memory ; and 
therefore we assign to sense, not an indivisible point 
of time, but that small portion of time which we call 
the present, which has a beginning, a middle, and an 
end. 

Hence it is easy to see, that, though in common lan- 
guage we speak with perfect propriety and truth when 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 237 

we say that we see a body move, and that motion 
is an object of sense, yet when as philosophers we dis- 
tinguish accurately the province of sense from that of 
memory, we can no more see what is past, though but 
a moment ago, than we can remember what is present; 
so that, speaking philosophically, it is only by the aid 
of memory that we discern motion, or any succession 
whatsoever. We see the present place of the body ; 
we remember the successive advance it made to that 
place : the first can, then, only give us a conception of 
motion, when joined to the last. 

Having considered the account given by Mr. Locke 
of the idea of succession, we shall next consider how, 
from the idea of succession, he derives the idea of dura- 
tion. 

" The distance," he says, " between any two parts of 
that succession, or between the appearance of any two 
ideas in our minds, is that we call duration." 

To conceive this the more distinctly, let us call the 
distance between an idea and that which immediately 
succeeds it, one element of duration ; the distance be- 
tween an idea and the second that succeeds it, two 
elements, and so on : if ten such elements make dura- 
tion, then one must make duration, otherwise duration 
must be made up of parts that have no duration, which 
is impossible. For, suppose a succession of as many 
ideas as you please, if none of these ideas have dura- 
tion, nor any interval of duration be between one and 
another, then it is perfectly evident there can be no in- 
terval of duration between the first and the last, how 
great soever their number be. I conclude, therefore, 
that there must be duration in every single interval or 
element of which the whole duration is made up. 
Nothing, indeed, is more certain, than that every ele- 
mentary part of duration must have duration, as every 
elementary part of extension must have extension. 

Now it must be observed, that in these elements of 
duration, or single intervals of successive ideas, there 
is no succession of ideas ; yet we must conceive them 
to have duration : whence we may conclude with cer- 



238 MEMORY. 

tainty, that there is a conception of duration where 
there is no succession of ideas in the mind. 

We may measure duration by the succession of 
thoughts in the mind, as we measure length by inches 
or feet : but the notion or idea of duration must be 
antecedent to the mensuration of it, as the notion of 
length is antecedent to its being measured. 

Mr. Locke draws some conclusions from his account 
of the idea of duration, which may serve as a touch- 
stone to discover how far it is genuine. 

One is, that if it were possible for a waking man to 
keep only one idea in his mind without variation, or 
the succession of others, he would have no perception 
of duration at all ; and the moment he began to have 
this idea would seem to have no distance from the 
moment he ceased to have it. Now, that one idea 
should seem to have no duration, and that a multiplica- 
tion of that no duration should seem to have duration, 
appears to me as impossible, as that the multiplication 
of nothing should produce something. 

Another conclusion which the author draws from 
this theory is, that the same period of duration appears 
long to us, when the succession of ideas in our mind 
is quick, and short when the succession is slow. 

There can be no doubt that the same length of dura- 
tion appears in some circumstances much longer than 
in others. The time appears long when a man is im- 
patient under any pain or distress, or when he is eager 
in the expectation of some happiness: on the other hand, 
when he is pleased and happy in agreeable conversa- 
tion, or delighted with a variety of agreeable objects 
that strike his senses or his imagination, time flies 
away, and appears short. According to Mr. Locke's 
theory, in the first of these cases the succession of ideas 
is very quick, and in the last very slow. I am rather 
inclined to think that the very contrary is the truth. 
When a man is racked with pain, or with expectation, 
he can hardly think of any thing but his distress; and 
the more his mind is occupied by that sole object, the 
longer the time appears. On the other hand, when he 



THE IDEA OF DURATION. 239 

is entertained with cheerful music, with lively conver- 
sation, and brisk sallies of wit, there seems to be the 
quickest succession of ideas, but the time appears short- 
est. I have heard' a military officer, a man of candor 
and observation, say, that the time he was engaged in 
hot action always appeared to him much shorter than 
it really was. Yet I think it cannot be supposed, that 
the succession of ideas was then slower than usual.* 

If the idea of duration were got merely by the suc- 
cession of ideas in our minds, that succession must to 
ourselves appear equally quick at all times, because the 
only measure of duration would be the number of suc- 
ceeding ideas ; but I believe every man capable of re- 
flection will be sensible, that at one time his thoughts 
come slowly and heavily, and at another time have a 
much quicker and livelier motion. 

I know of no ideas or notions that have a better 
.claim to be accounted simple and original, than those 
of space and time. It is essential both to space and 
time to be made up of parts, but every part is similar 
to the whole, and of the same nature. Different parts 
of space, as it has three dimensions, may differ both in 
figure and in magnitude ; but time having only one 
dimension, its parts can differ only in magnitude ; and 
as it is one of the simplest objects of thought, the con- 
ception of it must be purely the effect of our consti- 
tution, and given us by some original power of the 
mind. 

The sense of seeing, by itself, gives us the conception 
and belief of only two dimensions of extension, but the 
sense of touch discovers three ; and reason, from the 
contemplation of finite extended things, leads us neces- 
sarily to the belief of an immensity that contains them. 
In like manner, memory gives us the conception and 
belief of finite intervals of duration. From the con- 
templation of these, reason leads us necessarily to the 
belief of an eternity, which comprehends all things 



* In travelling, the time seems very short while passing; very lonj 
retrospect. The cause is obvious. — H. 



240 MEMORY. 

that have a beginning and end. Our conceptions, both 
of space and time, are probably partial and inade- 
quate,* and therefore we are apt to lose ourselves, and 
to be embarrassed in our reasonings about them.f 



* They are not probably, but necessarily, partial and inadequate. For we 
are unable positively to conceive time or space either as infinite (i. e. with- 
out limits) or as not infinite (i. e. as limited). — H. 

t Cousin's account of the origin of the idea of time is precise and 
luminous. " Here, again," he tells us, '* we are to distinguish the order ol 
the acquisition of our ideas from their logical order. In the logical order ol 
ideas, the idea of any succession of events presupposes that of time. 
There could not be any succession but upon condition of a continuous 
duration, to the different points of which the several members of the suc- 
cession may be attached. Take away the continuity of time, and you 
take away the possibility of the succession of the events ; just as, the con- 
tinuity of space being taken away, the possibility of the juxtaposition and 
coexistence of bodies is destroyed. 

" But in the chronological order, on the contrary, it is the idea of a suc- 
cession of events which precedes the idea of time as including them. I 
do not mean to say in regard to time, any more than in regard to space, 
that we have a clear, distinct, and complete idea of a succession, and that 
then the idea of time, as including this series or succession, springs up. 
I merely say, it is clearly necessary that we should have a perception of 
some events, in order to conceive that these events are in time, [and in 
order along with, and by occasion of, those events to have the idea of time 
awakened in the mind]. Time is the place of events, just as space is the 
place of bodies ; whoever had no idea of any event [no perception or con- 
sciousness of any succession] would have no idea of time. If, then, the 
logical condition of the idea of succession lies in the idea of time, the 
chronological condition of the idea of time is the idea of succession. 

" Now every idea of succession is undeniably an acquisition of experi- 
ence. It remains to ascertain of what experience. Is it inward or out- 
ward experience ? The first idea of succession, — is it given in the spec- 
tacle of outward events, or in the consciousness of the events that pass 
within us ? 

" Take a succession of outward events. In order that these events may 
be successive, it is necessary that there should be a first event, a second, a 
third, &c. But if, when you see the second event, you do not remember 
the first, it would not be the second ; there could be for you no succession. 
You would always remain fixed at the first event, which would not even 
have the character of first to you, because there would be no second. The 
intervention of memory is necessary, then, in order to conceive of any suc- 
cession whatever. Now memory has for its objects nothing external ; it 
relates not to things, but to ourselves ; we have no memory but of our- 
selves. When we say, we remember such a person, we remember such a 
place, — it means nothing more than that we remember to have been see- 
ing such a place, or we remember to have been hearing or seeing such a 
person. There is no memory but of ourselves, because there is no mem- 
ory but where there is consciousness. If consciousness, then, is the con- 
dition of memory, and memory the condition of time, it follows that the 
first succession is given us in ourselves, in consciousness, in the proper 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 241 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE NATURE AND ORIGIN OF OTJE NOTION OE 
PERSONAL IDENTITY. 

I. Of Identity in General.] The conviction which 
every man has of his identity, as far back as his mem- 
ory reaches, needs no aid of philosophy to strengthen 
it ; and no philosophy can weaken it, without first pro- 
ducing some degree of insanity. 

The philosopher, however, may very properly con- 
sider this conviction as a phenomenon of human nature 
worthy of his attention. If he can discover its cause, 
an addition is made to his stock of knowledge ; if not, 
it must be held as a part of our original constitution, 
or an effect of that constitution produced in a manner 
unknown to us. 

That we may form as distinct a notion as we are 
able of this phenomenon of the human mind, it is 
proper to consider what is meant by identity in gen- 
eral, what by our own personal identity, and how we 
are led into that invincible belief and conviction which 
every man has of his own personal identity, as far as 
his memory reaches. 

Identity in general I take to be a relation between a 
thing which is known to exist at one time, and a thing 
which is known to have existed at another time.* If 
you ask whether they are one and the same, or two 
different things, every man of common sense under- 



objects and phenomena of consciousness, — in our thoughts, in our ideas." 
— Elements of Psychology, Chap. III. 

Compare Kant, Critic of Pure Reason, Transcendental JEsthetic, Part I. 
Sect. II. ; Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Part I. Book II. 
Chap. VI. -IX.; Ballantyne's Examination of the Human Mind, Chap. I. 
Sect. II. ; Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, Chap. XIV. Sect. V. — Ed. 

* Identity is a relation between our cognitions of a thing, and not be- 
tween things themselves. It would, therefore, have been better in this 
sentence to have said, " a relation between a thing as known to exist at one 
time, and a thing as Jcnoirn to exist at another time." — H. 

21 



242 MEMORY. 

stands the meaning of your question perfectly. Whence 
we may infer with certainty, that every man of com- 
mon sense has a clear and distinct notion of identity. 

If you ask a definition of identity, I confess I can 
give none ; it is too simple a notion to admit of logical 
definition : I can say it is a relation, but I cannot find 
words to express the specific difference between this 
and other relations-, though I am in no danger of con- 
founding it with any other. I can say that diversity is 
a contrary relation, and that similitude and dissimili- 
tude are another couple of contrary relations, which 
every man easily distinguishes in his conception from 
identity and diversity. 

I see evidently that identity supposes an uninterrupted 
continuance of existence. That which has ceased to 
exist cannot be the same with that which afterwards 
begins to exist; for this would be to suppose a being 
to exist after it ceased to exist, and to have had ex- 
istence before it was produced, which are manifest 
contradictions. Continued uninterrupted existence is 
therefore necessarily implied in identity. Hence we 
may infer, that identity cannot, in its proper sense, be 
applied to our pains, our pleasures, our thoughts, or 
any operation of our minds. The pain felt this day is 
not the same individual pain which I felt yesterday, 
though they may be similar in kind and degree, and 
have the same cause. The same may be said of every 
feeling, and of every operation of mind. They are all 
successive in their nature, like time itself, no two mo- 
ments of which can be the same moment. It is other- 
wise with the parts of absolute space. They always 
are, and were, and will be the same. So far, I think, 
we proceed upon clear ground in fixing the notion of 
identity in general. 

II. Nature and Origin of our Idea of Personal Iden- 
tity.] It is perhaps more difficult to ascertain with pre- 
cision the meaning of personality ; but it is not neces- 
sary in the present subject : it is sufficient for our 
purpose to observe, that all mankind place their person- 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 



243 



ality in something that cannot be divided, or consist of 
parts. A part of a person is a manifest absurdity. 
When a man loses his estate, his health, his strength, 
he is still the same person, and has lost nothing of his 
personality. If he has a leg or an arm cut off, he is 
the same person he was before. The amputated mem- 
ber is no part of his person, otherwise it would have a 
right to a part of his estate, and be liable for a part of 
his engagements. It would be entitled to a share of 
his merit and demerit, which is manifestly absurd. A 
person is something indivisible, and is what Leibnitz 
calls a monad. 

My personal identity, therefore, implies the continued 
existence of that indivisible thing which I call myself. 
Whatever this self may be, it is something which thinks, 
and deliberates, and resolves, and acts, and suffers. I 
am not thought, I am not action, I am not feeling ; I 
am something that thinks, and acts, and suffers. My 
thoughts, and actions, and feelings, change every mo- 
ment ; they have no continued, but a successive, exist- 
ence ; but that self or J, to which they belong, is per- 
manent, and has the same relation to all the succeeding 
thoughts, actions, and feelings which I call mine. 

Such are the notions that I have of my personal 
identity. But perhaps it may be said, this may all be 
fancy without reality. How do you know, — what evi- 
dence have you, — that there is such a permanent self 
which has a claim to all the thoughts, actions, and feel- 
ings which you call yours ? 

To this I answer, that the proper evidence I have of 
all this is remembrance. I remember that twenty years 
ago I conversed with such a person ; I remember sev- 
eral things that passed in that conversation : my mem- 
ory testifies, not only that this was done, but that it 
was done by me who now remember it. If it was done 
by me, I must have existed at that time, and continued 
to exist from that time to the present : if the identical 
person whom I call myself had not a part in that con- 
versation, my memory is fallacious ; it gives a distinct 
and positive testimony of what is not true. Every 



244 MEMORY. 

man in his senses believes what he distinctly remem- 
bers, and every thing he remembers convinces him that 
he existed at the time remembered. 

Although memory gives the most irresistible evidence 
of my being the identical person that did such a thing, 
at such a time, I may have other good evidence of 
things which befell me, and which I do not remember: 
I know who bare me, and suckled me, but I do not 
remember these events. 

It may here be observed, (though the observation 
would have been unnecessary, if some great philoso- 
phers had not contradicted it,) that it is not my remem- 
bering any action of mine that makes me to be the 
person who did it. This remembrance makes me to 
Jcnoiv assuredly that I did it ; but I might have done it, 
though I did not remember it. That relation to me, which 
is expressed by saying that I did it, would be the same, 
though I had not the least remembrance of it. To say 
that my remembering that I did such a thing, or, as 
some choose to express it, my being conscious that I 
did it, makes me to have done it, appears to me as 
great an absurdity as it would be to say, that my belief 
that the world was created made it to be created. 

When we pass judgment on the identity of other per- 
sons than ourselves, we proceed upon other grounds, 
and determine from a variety of circumstances, which 
sometimes produce the firmest assurance, and some- 
times leave room for doubt. The identity of persons 
has often furnished matter of serious litigation before 
tribunals of justice. But no man of a sound mind 
ever doubted of his own identity, as far as he distinctly 
remembered. 

The identity of a person is a perfect identity: wher- 
ever it is real, it admits of no degrees; and it is impos- 
sible that a person should be in part the same, and in 
part different ; because a person is a monad, and is not 
divisible into parts. The evidence of identity in other 
persons than ourselves does indeed admit of all de- 
grees, from what we account certainty, to the least 
degree of probability. But still it is true, that the same 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 245 

person is perfectly the same, and cannot be so in part, 
or in some degree only. 

For this cause, I have first considered personal iden- 
tity, as that which is perfect in its kind, and the natu- 
ral measure of that which is imperfect. 

We probably at first derive our notion of identity 
from that natural conviction which every man has from 
the dawn of reason of his oivn identity and continued 
existence. The operations of our minds are all suc- 
cessive, and have no continued existence. But the 
thinking being has a continued existence, and we have 
an invincible belief, that it remains the same when all 
its thoughts and operations change. 

Our judgments of the identity of objects of sense 
seem to be formed much upon the same grounds as 
our judgments of the identity of other persons than 
ourselves. Wherever we observe great similarity, we 
are apt to presume identity, if no reason appears to 
the contrary. Two objects ever so like, when they are 
perceived at the same time, cannot be the same ; but if 
they are presented to our senses at different times, we 
are apt to think them the same, merely from their simi- 
larity. 

Whether this be a natural prejudice, or from what- 
ever cause it proceeds, it certainly appears in children 
from infancy ; and when we grow up, it is confirmed in 
most instances by experience : for we rarely find two 
individuals of the same species that are not distinguish- 
able by obvious differences. A man challenges a thief 
whom he finds in possession of his horse or his watch, 
only on similarity. When the watchmaker swears that 
he sold this watch to such a person, his testimony is 
grounded on similarity. The testimony of witnesses 
to the identity of a person is commonly grounded on 
no other evidence. 

Thus it appears, that the evidence we have of our 
own identity, as far back as we remember, is totally of 
a different kind from the evidence we have of the iden- 
tity of other persons, or of objects of sense. The first 
is grounded on memory, and gives undoubted certainty. 
21* 



246 MEMORY. 

The last is grounded on similarity, and on other circum- 
stances, which in many cases are not so decisive as to 
leave no room for doubt. 

It may likewise be observed, that the identity of 
objects of sense is never perfect. All bodies, as they 
consist of innumerable parts that may be disjoined 
from them by a great variety of causes, are subject to 
continual changes of their substance, increasing, dimin- 
ishing, changing insensibly. When such alterations 
are gradual, because language could not afford a differ- 
ent name for every different state of such a changeable 
being, it retains the same name, and is considered as 
the same thing. Thus we say of an old regiment, that 
it did such a thing a century ago, though there now is 
not a man alive who then belonged to it. We say 
a tree is the same in the seed-bed and in the forest. 
A ship of war, which has successively changed her an- 
chors, her tackle, her sails, her masts, her planks, and her 
timbers, while she keeps the same name, is the same. 

The identity, therefore, which we ascribe to bodies, 
whether natural or artificial, is not perfect identity ; it 
is rather something which, for the conveniency of 
speech, we call identity. It admits of a great change 
of the subject, providing the change be gradual; some- 
times, even of a total change. And the changes which 
in common language are made consistent with identity 
differ from those that are thought to destroy it, not in 
kind, but in number and degree. It has no fixed nature 
when applied to bodies ; and questions about the iden- 
tity of a body are very often questions about words. 
But identity, when applied to persons, has no ambi- 
guity, and admits not of degrees, or of more and less. 
It is the foundation of all rights and obligations, and 
of all accountableness ; and the notion of it is fixed 
and precise. 

III. Strictures on Locke's Account of Personal Iden- 
tity.] In a long chapter, Of Identity and Diversity, Mr. 
Locke has made many ingenious and just observations, 
and some which I think cannot be defended. I shall 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 247 

only take notice of the account he gives of our own 
personal identity. His doctrine upon this subject has 
been censured by Bishop Butler, in a short essay sub- 
joined to his Analogy, with whose sentiments I per- 
fectly agree. 

Identity, as has been observed, supposes the contin- 
ued existence of the being of which it is affirmed, and 
therefore can be applied only to things which have a 
continued existence. While any being continues to 
exist, it is the same being ; but two beings which have 
a different beginning or a different ending of their ex- 
istence cannot possibly be the same. To this, I think, 
Mr. Locke agrees. 

He observes, very justly, that, to know what is meant 
by the same person, we must consider what the word 
person stands for ; and he defines a person to be an 
intelligent being, endowed with reason and with con- 
sciousness, which last he thinks inseparable from 
thought. From this definition of a person, it must 
necessarily follow, that, while the intelligent being con- 
tinues to exist and to be intelligent, it must be the 
same person. To say that the intelligent being is the 
person, and yet that the person ceases to exist while 
the intelligent being continues, or that the person con- 
tinues while the intelligent being ceases to exist, is to 
my apprehension a manifest contradiction. 

One would think that the definition of a person 
should perfectly ascertain the nature of personal iden- 
tity, or wherein it consists, though it might still be a 
question how we come to know and be assured of our 
personal identity. 

Mr. Locke tells us, however, " that personal identity, 
that is, the sameness of a rational being, consists in con- 
sciousness alone, and, as far as this consciousness can 
be extended backwards to any past action or thought, 
so far reaches the identity of that person. So that 
whatever has the consciousness of present and past 
actions is the same person to whom they belong." * 

* See Essay, Book II. Chap. XXVII. - XXIX. The passage given as 



248 MEMORY. 

This doctrine has some strange consequences, which 
the author was aware of. (1.) Such as, that if the 
same consciousness can be transferred from one intelli- 
gent being to another, which he thinks we cannot show 
to be impossible, then two or twenty intelligent beings 
may be the same person. (2.) And if the intelligent 
being may lose the consciousness of the actions done 
by him, which surely is possible, then he is not the per- 
son that did those actions ; so that one intelligent being 
may be two or twenty different persons, if he shall so 
often lose the consciousness of his former actions. 

(3.) There is another consequence of this doctrine, 
which follows no less necessarily, though Mr. Locke 
probably did not see it. It is, that a man may be, and 
at the same time not be, the person that did a particular 
action. Suppose a brave officer to have been flogged 
when a boy at school for robbing an orchard, to have 
taken a standard from the enemy in his first campaign, 
and to have been made a general in advanced life ; 

a quotation in the text is the sum of Locke's doctrine, but not exactly in 
his words. Long before Butler, to whom the merit is usually ascribed, 
Locke's doctrine of personal identity had been attacked and refuted. This 
was done even by his earliest critic, John Sergeant, whose words, as he is 
an author wholly unknown to all historians of philosophy, and his works 
of the rarest, I shall quote. He thus argues : — " But to speak to the 
point. Consciousness of any action or other accident we have now, or 
have had, is nothing but our knowledge that it belonged to us ; and since 
we both agree that we have no innate knowledges, it follows that all both 
actual and habitual knowledges which we have are acquired or accidental 
to the subject or knoiver. Wherefore the man, or that thing which is to be 
the knower, must have had individuality or personality from other princi- 
ples antecedently 'to this knowledge called consciousness; and consequently, 
he will retain his identity, or continue the same man, or (which is equiva- 
lent) the same person, as long as he has those individuating principles. 
What those individuating principles are which constitute the man, or this 
knowing individuum, I have shown above. It being, then, most evident, 
that a man must be the same, ere he can know or be conscious that he is the 
same, all his (Locke's) laborious descants and extravagant consequences, 
which are built on this supposition that consciousness individuates the per- 
son, can need no farther reflection." — Solid Philosophy Asserted, Beflec- 
tion XIV. § 14. 

The same objection was also made by Leibnitz in his strictures on 
Locke's Essay. See Nouveaux Essais, Liv. II. Chap. XXVII. For the 
best criticism of Locke's doctrine of personal identity, I may refer the 
reader to M. Cousin's Cours de Philosophic, Tome II. Leqon XVIII. [Ele- 
ments of Psychology, Chap. III.] — H. 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 249 

suppose, also, which must be admitted to be possible, 
that, when he took the standard, he was conscious of 
his having been flogged at school, and that, when made 
a general, he was conscious of his taking the standard, 
but had absolutely lost the consciousness of his flog- 
ging. These things being supposed, it follows, from 
Mr. Locke's doctrine, that he who was flogged at school 
is the same person who took the standard, and that he 
who took the standard is the same person who was 
made a general. Whence it follows, if there be any 
truth in logic, that the general is the same person with 
him who was flogged at school. But the general's con- 
sciousness does not reach so far back as his flogging; 
therefore, according to Mr. Locke's doctrine, he is not 
the person who was flogged. Therefore the general is, 
and at the same time is not, the same person with him 
who was flogged at school* 

Leaving the consequences of this doctrine to those 
who have leisure to trace them, we may observe, with 
regard to the doctrine itself, — 

First, that Mr. Locke attributes to consciousness the 
conviction we have of our past actions, as if a man 
may now be conscious of what he did twenty years 
ago. It is impossible to understand the meaning of 
this, unless by consciousness be meant memory, the only 
faculty by which we have an immediate knowledge of 
our past actions.f 

Sometimes, in popular discourse, a man says he is 
conscious that he did such a thing, meaning that he 
distinctly remembers that he did it. It is unnecessary, 
in common discourse, to fix accurately the limits be- 
tween consciousness and memory. This was formerly 
shown to be the case with regard to sense and mem- 
ory : and therefore distinct remembrance is sometimes 
called sense, sometimes consciousness, without any in- 

* Compare Buffier's Traiti des Premieres Vdrites, § 505, who makes a 
similar criticism. — H. 

t Locke, it will be remembered, does not, like Reid, view consciousness 
as a coordinate faculty with memory ; but under consciousness he properly 
comprehends the various faculties as so many special modifications. — H. 



250 MEMORY. 

convenience. But this ought to be avoided in philoso- 
phy, otherwise we confound the different powers of the 
mind, and ascribe to one what really belongs to another. 
If a man can be conscious of what he did twenty 
years or twenty minutes ago, there is no use for mem- 
ory, nor ought we to allow that there is any such fac- 
ulty. The faculties of consciousness and memory are 
chiefly distinguished by this, that the first is an imme- 
diate knowledge of the present, the second an immedi- 
ate knowledge of the past* 

When, therefore, Mr. Locke's notion of personal 
identity is properly expressed, it is, that personal iden- 
tity consists in distinct remembrance ; for, even in the 
popular sense, to say that I am conscious of a past 
action means nothing else than that I distinctly remem- 
ber that I did it. 

Secondly, it may be observed, that, in this doctrine, 
not only is consciousness confounded with memory, 
but, which is still more strange, personal identity is con- 
founded w r ith the evidence which ive have of our per- 
sonal identity. 

It is very true, that my remembrance that I did such 
a thing is the evidence I have that I am the identical 
person who did it. And this, I am apt to think, Mr. 
Locke meant. But to say that my remembrance that 



* As already stated, all immediate knowledge of the past is contradictory. 
This observation I cannot again repeat. See Note B. — H 

We copy a passage from the Note referred to, though it is little more 
than a repetition of what was said before : — " As not now present in time, 
an immediate knowledge of the past is impossible. The past is only me- 
diately cognizable in and through a present modification relative to, and 
representative of, it, as having been. To speak of an immediate knowl- 
edge of the past involves a contradiction in adjecto. For to know the past 
immediately, it must be known in itself; — and to be known in itself, it 
must be known as now existing. But the past is just a negation of the 
now existent : its very notion, therefore, excludes the possibility of its 
being immediately known" It is probable that, by an immediate knowl- 
edge of the past, Reid meant " a knowledge effected not through the sup- 
posed intervention of a vicarious object, numerically different from the object 
existing and the mind hnowing, but through a representation of the past or 
real object, in and by the mind : in other words, that by mediate knowledge 
in this connection he denoted a non-egoistical, by immediate knowledge ail 
egoistical representation." — Ed. 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 251 

I did such a thing, or my consciousness, makes me the 
person who did it, is, in my apprehension, an absurdity 
too gross to be entertained by any man who attends to 
the meaning of it; for it is to attribute to memory or 
consciousness a strange magical power of producing its 
object, though that object must have existed before the 
memory or consciousness which produced it. Con- 
sciousness is the testimony of one faculty ; memory is 
the testimony of another faculty ; and to say that the 
testimony is the cause of the thing testified, this surely 
is absurd, if any thing be, and could not have been said 
by Mr. Locke, if he had not confounded the testimony 
with the thing testified. 

When a horse that was stolen is found and claimed 
by the owner, the only evidence he can have, or that a 
judge or witnesses can have, that this is the very iden- 
tical horse which was his property, is similitude. But 
would it not be ridiculous from this to infer that the 
identity of a horse consists in similitude only ? The 
only evidence I have that I am the identical person 
who did such actions is, that I remember distinctly I 
did them ; or, as Mr. Locke expresses it, I am conscious 
I did them. To infer from this, that personal identity 
consists in consciousness, is an argument which, if it 
had any force, would prove the identity of a stolen 
horse to consist solely in similitude. 

Thirdly, is it not strange that the sameness or identity 
of a person should consist in a thing which is continu- 
ally changing, and is not any two minutes the same ? 

Our consciousness, our memory, and every operation 
of the mind, are still flowing like the water of a river, 
or like time itself. The consciousness I have this mo- 
ment can no more be the same consciousness I had last 
moment, than this moment can be the last moment. 
Identity can only be affirmed of things which have a 
continued existence. Consciousness, and every kind of 
thought, are transient and momentary, and have no 
continued existence ; and, therefore, if personal identity 
consisted in consciousness, it would certainly follow, 
that no man is the same person any two moments of his 



252 MEMORY. 

life ; and as the right and justice of reward and pun- 
ishment are founded on personal identity, no man could 
be responsible for his actions. 

But though I take this to be the unavoidable conse- 
quence of Mr. Locke's doctrine concerning personal 
identity, and though some persons may have liked the 
doctrine the better on this account, I am far from im- 
puting any thing of this kind to Mr. Locke. He was 
too good a man not to have rejected with abhorrence a 
doctrine which he believed to draw this consequence 
after it. 

Fourthly, there are many expressions used by Mr. 
Locke, in speaking of personal identity, which to me 
are altogether unintelligible, unless we suppose that he 
confounded that sameness or identity which we ascribe 
to an individual with the identity which, in common 
discourse, is often ascribed to many individuals of the 
same species. 

When we say that pain and pleasure, consciousness 
and memory, are the same in all men, this sameness 
can only mean similarity, or sameness of kind. That 
the pain of one man can be the same individual pain 
with that of another man is no less impossible, than 
that one man should be another man : the pain felt by 
me yesterday .can no more be the pain I feel to-day, 
than yesterday can be this day; and the same thing 
may be said of every passion and of every operation of 
the mind. The same kind or -species of operation may 
be in different men, or in the same man at different 
times; but it is impossible that the same individual 
operation should be in different men, or in the same 
man at different times. 

When Mr. Locke, therefore, speaks of "the same 
consciousness being continued through a succession of 
different substances " ; when he speaks of " repeating 
the idea of a past action, with the same consciousness 
we had of it at the first," and of " the same conscious- 
ness extending to actions past and to come " ; these 
expressions are to me unintelligible, unless he means 
not the same individual consciousness, but a conscious- 



OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 253 

ness that is similar, or of the same kind. If our per- 
sonal identity consists in consciousness, as this con- 
sciousness cannot be the same individually any two 
moments, but only of the -same kind, it would follow, 
that we are not for any two moments the same indi- 
vidual persons, but the same kind of persons. As our 
consciousness sometimes ceases to exist, as in sound 
sleep, our personal identity must cease with it. Mr. 
Locke allows, that the same thing cannot have two 
beginnings of existence, so that our identity would be 
irrecoverably gone every time we ceased to think, if it 
was but for a moment* 

* In addition to the works already cited or referred to on the subjects of 
personality and personal identity, consult Bouchitte, Persistan.ee tie la Per- 
sonnalite aprds la Mart, published in the Memoires of the Moral Section of 
the French Academy, Recueil des Savants Etrangers, Tome II. ; Broussais, 
Be V Irritation, Part I. Chap. V. Sect. IV. ; Mill's Analysis, Chap. XIV. 
Sect. VII. ; Young's Intellectual Philosophy, Lect. XLIIL, XLIV. ; Leroux, 
De V Humaniti, Introduction. — Ed. 



22 



ESSAY IV. 

OF CONCEPTION. 



CHAPTER I. 



OF CONCEPTION, OE SIMPLE APPEEHENSION IN 
GENERAL. 

I. Definition of the Term, with its Synonymes.] Con- 
ceiving, imagining* apprehending, understanding, hav- 
ing a notion of a thing, are common words used to 
express that operation of the understanding which the 
logicians call simple apprehension. The having an idea 
of a thing is, in common language, used in the same 
sense, chiefly I think since Mr. Locke's time.f 

Logicians define simple apprehension to be the bare 
conception of a thing without any judgment or belief 
about it. If this were intended for a strictly logical 

* Imagining should not be confounded with conceiving, &c. ; though some 
philosophers, as Gassendi, have not attended to the distinction. The words 
conception, concept, notion, should be limited to the thought of what cannot 
be represented in the imagination, — as the thought suggested by a gen- 
eral term. The Leibnitzians call this symbolical, in contrast to intuitive 
knowledge. This is the sense in which conceptio and conceptus have been 
usually and correctly employed. Mr Stewart, on the other hand, arbitra- 
rily limits conception to the reproduction, in imagination, of an object of 
sense as actually perceived. See Elements, Part I. Chap. III. The dis- 
crimination in question is best made in the German language of philoso- 
phy, where the term Begriffe (conceptions) is strongly contrasted with 
Anschauungen (intuitions), Bilden (images), &c. — H. 

t In this country should have been added. Locke only introduced into 
English philosophy the term idea in its Cartesian universality. Prior to 
him, the word was only used with us in its Platonic signification. Before 
Descartes, David Buchanan, a Scotch philosopher, who sojourned in 
Prance, had, however, employed idea in an equal latitude. See Note G. 
— H. 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 



255 



definition, it might be a just objection to it, that con- 
ception and apprehension are only synonymous words ; 
and that we may as well define conception by ap- 
prehension, as apprehension by conception ; but it 
ought to be remembered, that the most simple opera- 
tions of the mind cannot be logically defined. To have 
a distinct notion of them, we must attend to them as 
we feel them in our own minds. He that would have 
a distinct notion of a scarlet color will never attain it 
by a definition ; he must set it before his eye, attend to 
it, compare it with the colors that come nearest to it, 
and observe the specific difference, which he will in 
vain attempt to express. 

Every man is conscious that he can conceive a thou- 
sand things, of which he believes nothing at all ; as a 
horse with wings, a mountain of gold; but although 
conception may be without any degree of belief, even 
the weakest belief cannot be without conception. He 
that believes must have some conception of what he 
believes. 

Without attempting a definition of this operation of 
the mind, I shall endeavour to explain some of its prop- 
erties ; consider the theories about it ; and take notice 
of some mistakes of philosophers concerning it. 

II. Characteristic Properties of Conception.] 1. It 
may be observed, that conception enters as an ingredi- 
ent in every operation of the mind. Our senses cannot 
give us the belief of any object, without giving some 
conception of it at the same time. No man can either 
remember or reason about things of which he has no 
conception. When we will to exert any of our active 
powers, there must be some conception of what we will 
to do. There can be no desire nor aversion, love nor 
hatred, without some conception of the object. We 
cannot feel pain without conceiving it, though we can 
conceive it without feeling it. These things are self- 
evident. 

In every operation of the mind, therefore, in every 
thing we call thought, there must be conception. 



256 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

When we analyze the various operations either of the 
understanding or of the will, we shall always find this 
at the bottom, like the caput mortuum of the chemists, 
or the materia prima of the Peripatetics ; but though 
there is no operation of mind without conception, yet 
it may be found naked, detached from all others, and 
then it is called simple apprehension, or the bare con- 
ception of a thing. 

As all the operations of our mind are expressed by 
language, every one knows that it is one thing to under- 
stand what is said, to conceive or apprehend its mean- 
ing, whether it be a word, a sentence, or a discourse ; 
it is another thing to judge of it, to assent or dissent, 
to be persuaded or moved. The first is simple appre- 
hension, and may be without the last, but the last can- 
not be without the first. 

2. In bare conception there can neither be truth nor 
falsehood, because it neither affirms nor denies. Every 
judgment, and every proposition by which judgment is 
expressed, must be true or false ; and the qualities of 
true and false, in their proper sense, can belong to 
nothing but to judgments, or to propositions which 
express judgment. In the bare conception of a thing 
there is no judgment, opinion, or belief included, and 
therefore it cannot be either true or false. 

But it may be said, Is there any thing more certain 
than that men may have true or false conceptions, true 
or false apprehensions, of things ? I answer, that such 
ways of speaking are indeed so common, and so well 
authorized by custom, the arbiter of language, that it 
would be presumption to censure them. It is hardly 
possible to avoid using them. But we ought to be 
upon our guard that we be not misled by them to con- 
found things which, though often expressed by the 
same words, are really different. We must therefore 
remember, that all the words by which we signify the 
bare conception of a thing are likewise used to signify 
our opinions when we wish to express them with mod- 
esty and diffidence. Thus, instead of saying, " This is 
my opinion," or " This is my judgment," which has the 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 257 

air of dogmaticalness, we say, " I conceive it to be 
thus," which is understood as a modest declaration of 
our judgment. In like manner, when any thing is said 
which we take to be impossible, we say, " "We cannot 
conceive it," meaning that we cannot believe it. And 
we shall always find, that, when we speak of true or 
false conceptions, we mean true or false opinions. An 
opinion, though ever so wavering, or ever so modestly 
expressed, must be either true or false ; but a bare con- 
ception, which expresses no opinion or judgment, can 
be neither. 

If we analyze those speeches in which men attrib- 
ute truth or falsehood to our conceptions of things, we 
shall find, in every case, that there is some opinion or 
judgment implied in what they call conception. A 
child conceives the moon to be flat, and a foot or two 
broad ; that is, this is his opinion : and when we say it 
is a false notion, or a false conception, we mean that it 
is a false opinion. He conceives the city of London 
to be like his country village ; that is, he believes it to 
be so till he is better instructed. He conceives a lion 
to have horns; that is, he believes that the animal 
which men call a lion has horns. Such opinions lan- 
guage authorizes us to call conceptions ; and they may 
be true or false. But bare conception, or what the 
logicians call simple apprehension, implies no opinion, 
however slight, and therefore can neither be true nor 
false. 

3. Of all the analogies between the operations of body 
and those of the mind, there is none so strong and so 
obvious to all mankind as that which there is between 
painting, or other plastic arts, and the power of conceiv- 
ing objects in the mind. Hence, in all languages, the 
words by which this power of the mind and its various 
modifications are expressed are analogical, and bor- 
rowed from those arts. We consider this power of the 
mind as a plastic power, by which we form to ourselves 
images of the objects of thought. 

In vain should we attempt to avoid this analogical 
language, for we have no other language upon the sub- 
22* 



258 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

ject; yet it is dangerous, and apt to mislead. AH ana- 
logical and figurative words have a double meaning ; 
and, if we are not very much upon our guard, we slide 
insensibly from the borrowed and figurative meaning 
into the primitive. We are prone to carry the parallel 
between the things compared farther than it will hold, 
and thus very naturally to fall into error. 

To avoid this as far as possible in the present sub- 
ject, it is proper to attend to the dissimilitude between 
conceiving a thing in the mind, and painting it to the 
eye, as well as to their similitude. The similitude 
strikes and gives pleasure. The dissimilitude we are 
less disposed to observe. But the philosopher ought to 
attend to it, and to carry it always in mind, in his rea- 
sonings on this subject, as a monitor, to warn him 
against the errors into which the analogical language 
is apt to draw him. 

When a man paints, there is some work done, which 
remains when his hand is taken off, and continues to 
exist though he should think no more of it. Every 
stroke of his pencil produces an effect, and this effect 
is different from his action in making it; for it remains 
and continues to exist when the action ceases. The 
action of painting is one thing, the picture produced is 
another thing. The first is the cause, the second is the 
effect. Let us next consider what is done when he only 
conceives this picture. He must have conceived it be- 
fore he painted it: for this is a maxim universally ad- 
mitted, that every work of art must first be conceived 
in the mind of the operator. What is this conception ? 
It is an act of the mind, a kind of thought. This can- 
not be denied. But does it produce any effect besides 
the act itself? Surely common sense answers this 
question in the negative : for every one knows that it is 
one thing to conceive, another thing to bring forth into 
effect. It is one thing to project, another to execute. 
A man may think for a long time what he is to do, and 
after all do nothing. Conceiving, as well as projecting 
or resolving, is what the schoolmen call an immanent 
act of the mind, which produces nothing beyond itself. 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 259 

But painting is a transitive act, which produces an 
effect distinct from the operation, and this effect is the 
picture. Let this, therefore, be always remembered, 
that what is commonly called the image of a thing in 
the mind is no more than the act or operation of the 
mind in conceiving it. 

That this is the common sense of men who are un- 
tutored by philosophy, appears from their language. If 
one ignorant of the language should ask, What is 
meant by conceiving a thing- ? we should very naturally 
answer, that it is having an image of it in the mind; 
and perhaps we could not explain the word better. 
This shows that conception, and the image of a thing 
in the mind, are synonymous expressions. The image 
in the mind, therefore, is not the object of conception, 
nor is it any effect produced by conception as a cause. 
It is the conception itself. That very mode of thinking 
which we call conception is by another name called an 
image in the mind.* 

Nothing more readily gives the conception of a thing 
than the seeing an image of it. Hence, by a figure 
common in language, conception is called an image of 
the thing conceived. But to show that it is not a real 
but a metaphorical image, it is called an image in the 
mind. We know nothing that is properly in the mind 
but thought ; and when any thing else is said to be in 
the mind, the expression must be figurative, and signify 
some kind of thought. 

4. Taking along with us what is said in the last 
article, to guard us against the seduction of the analog- 
ical language used on this subject, we may observe a 
very strong analogy, not only between conceiving and 
painting in general, but behoeen the different kinds of 
our conceptions, and the different works of the painter. 
He either makes fancy pictures, or he copies from the 

* We ought, however, to distinguish imagination and image, conception 
and concept. Imagination and conception ought to he employed in speaking 
of the mental modification, one and indivisible, considered as an act ; 
image and concept, in speaking of it considered as a product or immediate 
object. — H. 



260 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

painting of others, or he paints from the life, that is, 
from real objects of art or nature which he has seen. 
I think our conceptions admit of a division very similar. 

First, there are conceptions which may be called 
fancy pictures. They are commonly called creatures 
of fancy, or of imagination. They are not the copies 
of any original that exists, but are originals themselves. 
Such was the conception which Swift formed of the 
island of Laputa and of the country of the Lillipu- 
tians ; Cervantes, of Don Quixote and his Squire ; Har- 
rington, of the Government of Oceana ; and Sir Thom- 
as More, of that of Utopia. We can give names to such 
creatures of imagination, conceive them distinctly, and 
reason consequentially concerning them, though they 
never had an existence. They were conceived by their 
creators, and may be conceived by others, but they never 
existed. We do not ascribe the qualities of true or 
false to them, because they are not accompanied with 
any belief, nor do they imply any affirmation or nega- 
tion. 

Setting aside those creatures of imagination, there 
are other conceptions, which may be called copies, be- 
cause they have an original or archetype to which they 
refer, and with which they are believed to agree ; and 
we call them true or false conceptions, according as 
they agree or disagree with the standard to which they 
are referred. These are of two kinds, which have dif- 
ferent standards or originals. 

The first kind is analogous to pictures taken from, 
the life. We have conceptions of individual things that 
really exist, such as the city of London, or the govern- 
ment of Venice. Here the things conceived are the 
originals ; and our conceptions are called true when 
they agree with the thing conceived. Thus, my con- 
ception of the city of London is true when I conceive 
it to be what it really is. 

Individual things which really exist being the crea- 
tures of God (though some of them may receive their 
outward form from man), he only who made them 
knows their whole nature ; we know them but in part, 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 261 

and therefore our conceptions of them must in all cases 
be imperfect and inadequate ; yet they may be true and 
just, as far as they reach. 

The second kind is analogous to the copies which 
the painter makes from pictures done before. Such, I 
think, are the conceptions we have of what the ancients 
called universals ; that is, of things which belong or 
may belong to many individuals. These are kinds and 
species of things ; — such as man, or elephant, which 
are species of substances ; wisdom, or courage, which 
are species of qualities ; equality, or similitude, which 
are species of relations.* 

It may be asked, From what original are these con- 
ceptions formed ? and When are they said to be true 
or false ? 

It appears to me that the original from which they 
are copied, that is, the thing conceived, is the concep- 
tion or meaning which other men who understand the 
language affix to the same words. Things are par- 
celled into kinds and sorts, not by nature, but by men. 
The individual things we are connected with are so 
many, that to give a proper name to every individual 
would be impossible. We could never attain the 
knowledge of them that is necessary, nor converse and 
reason about them, without sorting them according to 
their different attributes. Those that agree in certain 
attributes are thrown into one parcel, and have a gen- 
eral name given them, which belongs equally to every 
individual in that parcel. This common name must, 
therefore, signify those attributes which have been ob- 
served to be common to every individual in that parcel, 
and nothing else. 

That such general words may answer their intention, 
all that is necessary is that those who use them should 
affix the same meaning or notion, that is, the same 
conception, to them. The common meaning is the stand- 

* Of all such we can have no adequate imagination. A universal, when 
represented in imagination, is no longer adequate, no longer a universal. 
We cannot have an image of " horse," but only of some individual of that 
species. Wc mag, however, have a notion or conception of it. — H. 



262 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 



ard by which such conceptions are formed, and they 
are said to be true or false, according as they agree or 
disagree with it. Thus, my conception of felony is 
true and just when it agrees with the meaning of that 
word in the laws relating to it, and in authors who un- 
derstand the law. The meaning of the word is the 
thing conceived; and that meaning is the conception 
affixed to it by those who best understand the lan- 
guage. 

If all the general words of a language had a precise 
meaning, and were perfectly understood, as mathemati- 
cal terms are, all verbal disputes would be at an end, 
and men would never seem to differ in opinion but 
when they differed in reality ; but this is far from being 
the case. The meaning of most general words is not 
learned like that of mathematical terms, by an accurate 
definition, but by the experience we happen to have, 
by hearing them used in conversation. From such ex- 
perience we collect their meaning by a kind of induc- 
tion ; and as this induction is for the most part lame 
and imperfect, it happens that different persons join 
different conceptions to the same general word ; and 
though we intend to give them the meaning which use, 
the arbiter of language, has put upon them, this is dif- 
ficult to find, and apt to be mistaken, even by the 
candid and attentive. Hence, in innumerable disputes, 
men do not really differ in their judgments, but in the 
way of expressing them. 

5. Our conception of things may be strong' and lively, 
or it may be faint and languid in all degrees. These 
are qualities which properly belong to our conceptions, 
though we have no names for them but such as are 
analogical. Every man is conscious of such a differ- 
ence in his conceptions, and finds his lively conceptions 
most agreeable, when the object is not of such a nature 
as to give pain. 

It seems easier to form a lively conception of objects 
that are familiar, than of those that are not. Our con- 
ceptions of visible objects are commonly the most lively, 
when other circumstances are equal : hence poets not 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 263 

only delight in the description of visible objects, but 
find means, by metaphor, analogy, and allusion, to 
clothe every object they describe with visible qualities. 
The lively conception of these makes the object appear, 
as it were, before our eyes. Lord Kames, in his Ele- 
ments of Criticism, has shown of what importance it is 
in works of taste to give to objects described what he 
calls ideal presence. To produce this in the mind is 
indeed the capital aim of poetical and rhetorical de- 
scription. It carries the man, as it were, out of him- 
self, and makes him a spectator of the scene described. 
This ideal presence seems to me to be nothing else but 
a lively conception of the appearance which the object 
would make if really present to the eye. It may also 
be observed, that our conceptions of visible objects 
become more lively by giving them motion, and more 
still by giving them life and intellectual qualities. 
Hence, in poetry, the whole creation is animated and 
endowed with sense and reflection. 

Abstract and general conceptions are never lively, 
though they may be distinct ; and therefore, however 
necessary in philosophy, seldom enter into poetical 
description without being particularized or clothed in 
some visible dress.* 

6. Our conceptions' of things may be clear, distinct, 
and steady ; or they may be obscure, indistinct, and wa- 
vering. The liveliness of our conceptions gives pleas- 
ure, but it is their distinctness and steadiness that ena- 
ble us to judge right, and to express our sentiments with 
perspicuity. 

If we inquire into the cause why, among persons 
speaking or writing on the same subject, we find in one 
so much darkness, in another so much perspicuity, I 
believe the chief cause will be found to be, that one 
had a distinct and steady conception of what he said 

* They thus cease to be aught abstract and general, and become merely 
individual representations. In precise language, they are no longer 
vorj/jLara, but (pavrao-jxara ; no longer Begriffe, but Anschauungen ; no 
longer notions or concepts, but images. The word " particularized " ought to 
have been individualized. — H. 



264 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

or wrote, and the other had not : men generally find 
means to express distinctly what they have conceived 
distinctly.* Horace observes, that proper words spon- 
taneously follow distinct conceptions, — Verbaque pro- 
visam rem non invita sequuntur. 

Some persons find it difficult to enter into a mathe- 
matical demonstration. I believe we shall always find 
the reason to be, that they do not distinctly apprehend it. 
A man cannot be convinced by what he does not un- 
derstand. On the other hand, I think a man cannot 
understand a demonstration without seems: the force 
of it. I speak of such demonstrations as those of 
Euclid, where every step is set down, and nothing left 
to be supplied by the reader. Sometimes one who has 
got through the first four books of Euclid's. Elements, 
and sees the force of the demonstrations, finds diffi- 
culty in the fifth. What is the reason of this ? You 
may find, by a little conversation with him, that he has 
not a clear and steady conception of ratios and of the 
terms relating to them. When the terms used in the 
fifth book have become familiar, and readily excite in 
his mind a clear and steady conception of their mean- 
ing, you may venture to affirm that he will be able to 
understand the demonstrations of that book, and to 
see the force of them. 

If this be really the case, as it seems to be, it leads 
us to think that men are very much upon a level with 
regard to mere judgment, when we take that faculty 
apart from the apprehension or conception of the things 
about which we judge ; so that a sound judgment 
seems to be the inseparable companion of a clear and 
steady apprehension : and we ought not to consider 
these two as talents, of which the one may fall to the 
lot of one man, and the other to the lot of another, but 
as talents which always go together. 

It may, however, be observed, that some of our con- 
ceptions may be more subservient to reasoning than 



* For several just and discriminating remarks on this subject, see Stew- 
art's Elements, Part I. Chap. II. — Ed. 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 265 

others which are equally clear and distinct. It was be- 
fore observed, that some of our conceptions are of indi- 
vidual things, others of things general and abstract. It 
may happen, that a man who has very clear concep- 
tions of things individual is not so happy in those of 
things general and abstract. And this I take to be the 
reason why we find men who have good judgment in 
matters of common life, and perhaps good talents for 
poetical or rhetorical composition, who find it very dif- 
ficult to enter into abstract reasoning. 

7. It has been observed by many authors, that, when 
we barely conceive any object, the ingredients of that 
conception must either be things with which we were 
before acquainted by some other original power of the 
mind, or they must be parts or attributes of such things. 
Thus, a man cannot conceive colors, if he never saw, 
nor sounds, if he never heard. If a man had not a 
conscience, he could not conceive what is meant by 
moral obligation, or by right and wrong in conduct. 

Fancy may combine things that never were com- 
bined in reality. It may enlarge or diminish, multiply 
or divide, compound and fashion the objects which 
nature presents ; but it cannot, by the utmost effort of 
that creative power which we ascribe to it, bring any 
one simple ingredient into its productions which nature 
has not framed, and brought to our knowledge by some 
other faculty. This Mr. Locke has expressed as beau- 
tifully as justly. " The dominion of man, in this little 
world of his own understanding, is much the same as 
in the great world of visible things ; wherein his power, 
however managed by art and skill, reaches no farther 
than to compound and divide the materials that are 
made to his hand, but can do nothing towards making 
the least particle of matter, or destroying one atom that 
is already in being. The same inability will every one 
find in himself to fashion in his understanding any 
simple idea not received by the powers which God has 
given him." 

I think all philosophers agree in this sentiment. Mr. 
Hume, indeed, after acknowledging the truth of the 
23 



266 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

principle in general, mentions what he thinks a single 
exception to it ; — that a man, who had seen all the 
shades of a particular color except one, might frame in 
his mind a conception of that shade which he never 
saw. I think this is not an exception ; because a par- 
ticular shade of a color differs not specifically, but only 
in degree, from other shades of the same color. 

It is proper to observe, that our most simple concep- 
tions are not those which nature immediately presents 
to us. When we come to years of understanding, we 
have the power of analyzing the objects of nature, of 
distinguishing then- several attributes and relations, of 
conceiving them one by one, and of giving a name to 
each, whose meaning extends only to that single attri- 
bute or relation : and thus our most simple conceptions 
are not those of any object in nature, but of some sin- 
gle attribute or relation of such objects. Thus nature 
presents to our senses bodies that are extended in three 
dimensions, and solid. By analyzing the notion we 
have of body from our senses, we form to ourselves the 
conceptions of extension, solidity, space, a point, a line, 
a surface ; all which are more simple conceptions than 
that of a body. But they are the elements, as it were, 
of which our conception of a body is made up, and 
into which it may be analyzed. 

8. Though our conceptions must be confined to the 
ingredients mentioned in the last article, we are uncon- 
fined with regard to the arrangement of those ingredients. 
Here we may pick and choose, and form an endless 
variety of combinations and compositions, which we call 
creatures of the imagination. These may be clearly 
conceived, though they never existed : and, indeed, 
every thing that is made must have been conceived 
before it was made. Every work of human art, and 
every plan of conduct, whether in public or in private 
life, must have been conceived before it is brought to 
execution. And we cannot avoid thinking, that the 
Almighty, before he created the universe by his power, 
had a distinct conception of the whole and of every part, 
and saw it to be good, and agreeable to his intention. 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 267 

It is the business of man, as a rational creature, to 
employ this unlimited power of conception for planning 
his conduct and enlarging his knowledge. It seems to 
be peculiar to beings endowed with reason to act by a 
preconceived plan. Brute animals seem either to want 
this power, or to have it in a very low degree. They 
are moved by instinct, habit, appetite, or natural affec- 
tion, according as these principles are stirred by the 
present occasion. But I see no reason to think that 
they can propose to themselves a connected plan of life, 
or form general rules of conduct. Indeed, we see that 
many of the human species, to whom God has given 
this power, make little use of it. They act without a 
plan, as the passion or appetite which is strongest at 
the time leads them. 

9. The last property I shall mention of this faculty 
is that which essentially distinguishes it from every 
other power of the mind ; and it is, that it is not em- 
ployed solely about things ivhich have existence. I can 
conceive a winged horse or a centaur, as easily and as 
distinctly as I can conceive a man whom I have seen. 
Nor does this distinct conception incline my judgment 
in the least to the belief, that a winged horse or a cen- 
taur ever existed. 

It is not so with the other operations of our minds. 
They are employed about real existences, and carry 
with them the belief of their objects. When I feel 
pain, I am compelled to believe that the pain that I 
feel has a real existence. When I perceive any exter- 
nal object, my belief of the real existence of the object 
is irresistible. When I distinctly remember any event, 
though that event may not now exist, I can have no 
doubt but it did exist. That consciousness which we 
have of the operations of our own minds implies a be- 
lief of the real existence of those operations. 

Thus we see that the powers of sensation, of percep- 
tion, of memory, and of consciousness are all employed 
solely about objects that do exist, or have existed. But 
conception is often employed about objects that neither 
do, nor did, nor will exist. This is the very nature of 



268 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

this faculty, that its object, though distinctly conceived, 
may have no existence. Such an object we call a 
creature of imagination ; but this creature never was 
created. 

That we may not impose upon ourselves in this mat- 
ter, we must distinguish between that act or operation 
of the mind which we call conceiving an object, and 
the object which we conceive. When we conceive any 
thing, there is a real act or operation of the mind ; of 
this we are conscious, and can have no doubt of its ex- 
istence : but every such act must have an object ; for 
he that conceives must conceive something. Suppose 
he conceives a centaur, he may have a distinct concep- 
tion of this object, though no centaur ever existed. 

The philosopher will say, I cannot conceive a cen- 
taur without having an idea of it in my mind. But I 
am at a loss to understand what he means. He surely 
does not mean that I cannot conceive it without con- 
ceiving it. This would make me no wiser. What 
then is this idea ? Is it an animal, half horse and half 
man ? No. Then I am certain it is not the thing I 
conceive. Perhaps he will say, that the idea is an 
image of the animal, and is the immediate object of 
my conception, and that the animal is the mediate or 
remote object. 

To this I answer : — First, I am certain there are not 
two objects of this conception, but one only ; which is 
as immediate an object of my conception as any can 
be. Secondly, this one object which I conceive is not 
the image of an animal, it is an animal. I know what 
it is to conceive an image of an animal, and what it is 
to conceive an animal ; and I can distinguish the one 
of these from the other without any danger of mistake. 
The thing I conceive is a body of a certain figure and 
color, having life and spontaneous motion. The phi- 
losopher says that the idea is an image of the animal, 
but that it has neither body, nor color, nor life, nor 
spontaneous motion. This I am not able to compre- 
hend. Thirdly, I wish to know how this idea comes to 
be an object of my thought, when I cannot even con- 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 269 

ceive what it means ; and if I did conceive it, this 
would be no evidence of its existence, any more than 
my conception of a centaur is of its existence.* 

But may not a man who conceives a centaur say, 
that he has a distinct image of it in his mind ? I think 
he may. And if he means by this way of speaking 
what the vulgar mean, who never heard of the philo- 
sophical theory of ideas, I find no fault with it. By a 
distinct image in the mind, the vulgar mean a distinct 
conception : and it is natural to call it so, on account 
of the analogy between an image of a thing and the 
conception of it. On account of this analogy, obvious 
to all mankind, this operation is called imagination, 
and " an image in the mind " is only a periphrasis for 
imagination. But to infer from this that there is really 
an image in the mind, distinct from the operation, of con- 

* Sir W. Hamilton, in his Supplementary Dissertations, Note B, § 2, re- 
marks as follows on this puzzle of Dr. Reid's : — " Reid maintains that in 
our cognitions there must be an object (real or imaginary) distinct from the 
operation of the mind conversant about it ; for the act is one thing, and the 
object of the act another. This is erroneous, — at least, it is erroneously ex- 
pressed. Take an imaginary object, and Reid's own instance, — a centaur. 
Here he says, 'The sole object of conception (imagination) is an animal 
which I believe never existed.' It ' never existed ' ; that is, never really, 
never in nature, never externally, existed. But it is ' an object of imagina- 
tion.' It is not, therefore, a mere non-existence; for if it had no kind of 
existence, it could not possibly be the positive object of any kind of thought. 
For were it an absolute nothing, it could have no qualities (non-entis nulla 
sunt attribula) ; but the object we are conscious of, as a centaur, has quali- 
ties, — qualities which constitute it a determinate something, and distin- 
guish it from every other entity whatsoever. We must, therefore, perforce, 
allow it some sort of imaginary, ideal representative, or (in the older mean- 
ing of the word) objective existence in the mind. Now this existence can 
only be one or other of two sorts ; for such object in the mind either is, or 
is not, a mode of mind. Of these alternatives the latter cannot be supposed ; 
for this would be an affirmation of the crudest kind of non-egoistical repre- 
sentation, — the very hypothesis against which Reid so strenuously con- 
tends. The former alternative remains, — that it is a mode of the imagining 
mind; that it is in fact the plastic act of imagination considered as repre- 
senting to itself a certain possible form, — a centaur. But then Reid's as- 
sertion, that there is always an object distinct from the operation of the 
mind conversant about it, the act being one thing, the object of the act 
another, must be surrendered. For the object and the act are here only 
one and the same thing in two several relations. Reid's error consists in 
mistaking a logical for a metaphysical difference, — a distinction of rela- 
tion for a distinction of entity. Or is the error only from the vagueness 
and ambiguity of expression I" — Ed. 

23* 



270 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

ceiving the object, is to be misled by an analogical ex- 
pression ; as if, from the phrases of deliberating and 
balancing things in the mind, we should infer that there 
is really a balance existing in the mind for weighing 
motives and arguments. 

III. Distinction between Conception and Imagination.] 
I take imagination, in its most proper sense, to signify 
a lively conception of objects of sight. This is a talent 
of importance to poets and orators, and deserves a 
proper name, on account of its connection with those 
arts. According to this strict meaning of the word, 
imagination is distinguished from conception as a part 
from the whole. We conceive the objects of the other 
senses, but it is not so proper to say that we imagine 
them. We conceive judgment, reasoning, propositions, 
and arguments ; but it is rather improper to say that 
we imagine these things. 

This distinction between imagination and concep- 
tion may be illustrated by an example, which Descartes 
uses to illustrate the distinction between imagination 
and pure intellection. We can imagine a triangle or 
a square so clearly as to distinguish them from every 
other figure. But we cannot imagine a figure of a 
thousand equal sides and angles so clearly. The best 
eye, by looking at it, could not distinguish it from 
every figure of more or fewer sides. And that concep- 
tion of its appearance to the eye, which we properly 
call imagination, cannot be more distinct than the ap- 
pearance itself; yet we can conceive a figure of a thou- 
sand sides, and even can demonstrate the properties 
which distinguish it from all figures of more or fewer 
sides. It is not by the eye, but. by a superior faculty, 
that we form the notion of a great number, such as a 
thousand : and a distinct notion of this number of sides 
not being to be got by the eye, it is not imagined, but 
it is distinctly conceived, and easily distinguished from 
every other number* 

* It is to be regretted that Eeid did not more fully develop the distinc- 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 271 

IV. Whether the Conceiv ability of Things is a Test 
of their Possibility.] Writers on logic affirm, that our 
conception of things is a test of their possibility ; so 
that what we can distinctly conceive, we may conclude 



tion between imagination and conception, on which he here and elsewhere 
inadequately touches. Imagination is not, though in conformity to the ety- 
mology of the term, to be limited to the representation of visible ohjects. 
Neither ought the term conceive to be used in the extensive sense of under- 
stand. — H. 

On the use of these terms Mr. Stewart expresses himself as follows : — 
" Dr Reid substitutes the word conception instead of the simple apprehension 
of the schools, and employs it in the same extensive signification. I think 
it may contribute to make our ideas more distinct, to restrict its meaning ; 
and for such a restriction we have the authority of philosophers in a case 
perfectly analogous. In ordinary lauguage, we apply the same word per- 
ception to the knowledge which we have by our senses of external objects, 
and fo our knowledge of speculative truth ; and yet an author would be 
justly censured, who should treat of these two operations of mind under 
the same article of perception. I apprehend there is as wide a difference 
between the conception of a truth and the conception of an absent object of 
sense, as between the perception of a tree and the perception of a mathe- 
matical theorem. I have therefore taken the liberty to distinguish also 
the two former operations of the mind ; and under the article of conception 
shall confine myself to that faculty whose province it is to enable us to 
form a notion of our past sensations, or of the objects of sense that we have 
formerly perceived. 

" The business of conception, according to the account I have given of 
it, is to present us with an exact transcript of what we have felt or per- 
ceived. But we have, moreover, a power of modifying our conceptions, by 
combining the parts of different ones together, so as to form new wholes of 
our own creation. I shall employ the word imagination to express this 
power ; and I apprehend that this is the proper sense of the word, if imag- 
ination be the power which gives birth to the productions of the poet and 
the painter." — Elements, Part I. Chap. III. 

He afterwards shows that the province of imagination is not limited to 
the perceptions of sight, or to the sensible world : — " All the objects of 
human knowledge supply materials to her forming hand ; diversifying in- 
finitely the works she produces, while the mode of her operation remains 
essentially the same. As it is the same power of reasoning which enables 
us to carry on our investigations with respect to individual objects, and 
with respect to classes or genera, so it was by the same processes of analy- 
sis and combination that the genius of Milton produced the garden of Eden, 
that of Harrington the commonwealth of Oceana, and that of Shakspeare 
the characters of Hamlet and Falstaff." — Ibid., Chap. VII. See, also, 
Ranch's Psychology, Part II. Sect. I. Chap. II. 

Mr. Stewart has not been generally followed in the restricted and 
peculiar sense which he gives to the term conception. Sir W. Hamilton, 
as appears from his note on page 269, limits it to the thought of what can- 
not be represented in the imagination, — as the thought suggested by a 
general term. So does Dr. Whewell, Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 
Part I. Book I. Chap. V. — Ed. 



272 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

to be possible, while of what is impossible we can have 
no conception. 

This opinion has been held by philosophers for more 
than a hundred years, without contradiction or dissent, 
as far as I know ; and if it be an error, it may be of 
some use to inquire into its origin, and the causes that 
it has been so generally received as a maxim whose 
truth could not be brought into doubt. 

One of the fruitless questions agitated among the 
scholastic philosophers in the dark ages * was, What is 
the criterion of truth ? — as if men could have any 
other way to distinguish truth from error but by the 
right use of that power of judging which God has 
given them. 

Descartes endeavoured to put an end to this contro- 
versy, by making it a fundamental principle in his sys- 
tem, that ivhatever we clearly and distinctly perceive is 
true. To understand this principle of Descartes, it 
must be observed that he gave the name of perception 
to every power of the human understanding; and in 
explaining this very maxim, he tells us that sense, im- 
agination, and pure intellection are only different modes 
of perceiving, and so the maxim was understood by all 
his followers. The learned Dr. Cudworth seems also 
to have adopted this principle. " The criterion of true 
knowledge," says he, " is only to be looked for in our 
knowledge and conceptions themselves : for the entity 
of all theoretical truth is nothing else but clear intelli- 
gibility, and whatever is clearly conceived is an entity 
and a truth ; but that which is false, Divine power itself 
cannot make it to be clearly and distinctly understood. 
A falsehood can never be clearly conceived or appre- 
hended to be true." — Eternal and Immutable Morality, 
p. 172. 

This Cartesian maxim seems to me to have led the 
way to that now under consideration, which seems to 
have been adopted as the proper correction of the 



* This was more a question with the Greek philosophers than with the 
schoolmen. — H. 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 273 

former. When the authority of Descartes declined, 
men began to see that we may clearly and distinctly 
conceive what is not true, but thought that our concep- 
tion, though not in all cases a test of truth, might be a 
test of possibility. This, indeed, seems to be a neces- 
sary consequence of the received doctrine of ideas ; it 
being evident that there can be no distinct image, either 
in the mind or anywhere else, of that which is impos- 
sible. The ambiguity of the word conceive, as when 
we say we cannot conceive such a thing, meaning that 
we think it impossible, might likewise contribute to the 
reception of this doctrine. 

But whatever was the origin of this opinion, it seems 
to prevail universally, and to be received as a maxim. 

" The bare having an idea of the proposition proves 
the thing not to be impossible ; for of an impossible 
proposition there can be no idea." — Dr. Samuel 
Clarke. 

" Of that which neither does nor can exist we can 
have no idea." — Lord Bolingbroke. 

" The measure of impossibility to us is inconceiva- 
bleness ; that of which we can have no idea but that, 
reflecting upon it, it appears to be nothing, we pro- 
nounce to be impossible." — Abernethy. 

" In every idea is implied the possibility of the exist- 
ence of its object, nothing being clearer than that there 
can be no idea of an impossibility, or conception of 
what cannot exist." — Dr. Price. 

" Impossibile est cujus nullam notionem formare pos- 
sumus ; possibile e contra, cui aliqua respondet notio." 
— Wolfii Ontolosria* 



* These are not exactly Wolf's expressions. See Ontologia, $§ 102, 103; 
Philosophia Rationalis, §§ 522, 528. The same doctrine is held by Tschirn- 
hausen and others. In so far, however, as it is said that inconceivability is 
the criterion of impossibility, it is manifestly erroneous. Of many contra- 
dictories we are able to conceive neither ; but, by the law of thought called 
that of excluded middle, one of two contradictories must be admitted, — 
must be true. For example, we can neither conceive, on the one hand, an 
ultimate minimum of space or of time; nor can we, on the other, conceive 
their infinite divisibility. In like manner, we cannot conceive the absolute 
commencement of time or the utmost limit of space, and are yet equally 



274 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

" It is an established maxim in metaphysics, that 
whatever the mind conceives includes the idea of pos- 
sible existence, or, in other words, that nothing we im- 
agine is absolutely impossible." — D. Hume. 

It were easy to muster up many other respectable 
authorities for this maxim, and I have never found one 
that called it in question. If the maxim be true in the 
extent which the famous Wolf has given it, in the pas- 
sage above quoted, we shall have a short road to the 
determination of every question about the possibility 
or impossibility of things. We need only look into 
our own breast, and that, like the Urim and Thummim, 
will give an infallible answer. If we can conceive the 
thing, it is possible ; if not, it is impossible. And surely 
every man may know whether he can conceive what is 
affirmed or not. 

Other philosophers have been satisfied with one half 
of the maxim of Wolf. They say, that whatever we 
can conceive is possible ; but they do not say, that what- 
ever we cannot conceive is impossible. I cannot help 
thinking even this to be a mistake, which philosophers 
have been unwarily led into, from the causes before 
mentioned. My reasons are these : — 

1. Whatever is said to be possible or impossible is 
expressed by a proposition. Now, what is it to con- 
ceive a proposition ? I think it is no more than to un- 
derstand distinctly its meaning* I know no more that 

unable to conceive them without any commencement or limit. The ab- 
surdity that would result from the assertion, that all that is inconceivable 
is impossible, is thus obvious ; and so far Reid's criticism is just, though 
not new. — H. 

* In this sense of the word conception, I make bold to say that there is 
no philosopher who ever held an opinion different from that of our author. 
The whole dispute arises from Reid's giving a wider signification to this 
term than that which it has generally received. In his view, it has two 
meanings ; in that of the philosophers whom he attacks, it has only one. 
To illustrate this, take the proposition, A circle is a square. Here we easily 
understand the meaning of the affirmation, because what is necessary to an 
act of judgment is merely that the subject and predicate should be brought 
into a unity of relation. A judgment is therefore possible, even where the 
two terms are contradictory. But the philosophers never expressed by 
the term conception this understanding of the purport of a proposition. 
What they meant by conception was not the unity of relation, but the unity 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 275 

can be meant by simple apprehension or conception, 
when applied to a proposition. The axiom, therefore, 
amounts to this : every proposition, of which you un- 
derstand the meaning distinctly, is possible. I am per- 
suaded that I understand as distinctly the meaning of 
this proposition, — Any two sides of a triangle are to- 
gether equal to the third, — as of this, — Any two sides 
of a triangle are together greater than the third; yet 
the first of these is impossible. 

Perhaps it will be said, that, though you understand 
the meaning of the impossible proposition, you cannot 
suppose or conceive it to be true. 

Here we are to examine the meaning of the phrases 
of supposing and conceiving a proposition to be true. I 
can certainly suppose it to be true, because I can draw 
consequences from it which I find to be impossible, as 
well as the proposition itself. If by conceiving it to 
be true be meant giving some degree of assent to it, 
however small, this I confess I cannot do. But will it 
be said, that every proposition to which I can give any 
degree of assent is possible ? This contradicts experi- 
ence, and therefore the maxim cannot be true in this 
sense. Sometimes, when we say that we cannot con- 
ceive a thing to be true, we mean by that expression, 
that we judge it to be impossible. In this sense, I can- 
not, indeed, conceive it to be true that two sides of a 
triangle are equal to a third. I judge it to be impos- 
sible. If, then, we understand in this sense the maxim, 
that nothing we can conceive is impossible, the mean- 
ing will be, that nothing is impossible which we judge 



of representation ; and this unity of representation they made the criterion 
of logical possibility. To take the example already given, they did not 
say a circle may possibly be a square, because we can understand the mean- 
ing of the proposition, A circle is square; but, on the contrary, they said it 
is impossible that a circle can be square, and the proposition affirming this 
is necessarily false, because we cannot, in consciousness, bring to a unity 
of representation the repugnant notions, circle and square, — that is, conceive 
the notion of a square circle. Reid's mistake in this matter is so palpable, 
that it is not more surprising that he should have committed it, than that 
so many should not only have followed him in the opinion, but even have 
lauded it as the refutation of an important error. — H. 



276 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

to be possible. But does it not often happen, that 
what one man judges to be possible, another man 
judges to be impossible ? The maxim, therefore, is not 
true in this sense. 

I am not able to find any other meaning of conceiv- 
ing' a proposition, or of conceiving- it to be true, besides 
these I have mentioned. I know nothing that can be 
meant by having the idea of a proposition, but either 
the understanding its meaning, or the judging of its 
truth. I can understand a proposition that is false or 
impossible, as well as one that is true or possible ; and 
I find that men have contradictory judgments about 
what is possible or impossible, as well as about other 
things. In what sense, then, can it be said, that the 
having an idea of a proposition gives certain evidence 
that it is possible ? 

If it be said, that the idea of a proposition is an 
image of it in the mind, I think, indeed, there cannot 
be a distinct image, either in the mind or elsewhere, of 
that which is impossible ; but what is meant by the 
image of a proposition I am not able to comprehend, 
and I shall be glad to be informed. 

2. Every proposition that is necessarily true stands 
opposed to a contradictory proposition that is impossi- 
ble ; and he that conceives one conceives both : thus, a 
man who believes that two and three necessarily make 
five, must believe it to be impossible that two and 
three should not make five. He conceives both prop- 
ositions when he believes one. Every proposition car- 
ries its contradictory in its bosom, and both are con- 
ceived at the same time. " It is confessed," says Mr. 
Hume, " that, in all cases where we dissent from any 
person, we conceive both sides of the question, but we 
can believe only one." From this it certainly follows, 
that when we dissent from any person about a neces- 
sary proposition, we conceive one that is impossible ; 
yet I know no philosopher who has made so much use 
of the maxim, that whatever we conceive is possible, 
as Mr. Hume. A great part of his peculiar tenets are 
built upon it ; and if it is true, they must be true. But 



ITS CHARACTERISTIC PROPERTIES. 277 

he did not perceive that in the passage now quoted, 
the truth of which is evident, he contradicts it himself. 

3. Mathematicians have, in many cases, proved some 
things to be possible, and others to be impossible, 
which, without demonstration, would not have been 
believed ; yet I have never found that any mathema- 
tician has attempted to prove a thing to be possible 
because it can be conceived, or impossible because it 
cannot be conceived.* Why is not this maxim applied 
to determine whether it is possible to square the circle ? 
— a point about which very eminent mathematicians 
have differed. It is easy to conceive, that, in the in- 
finite series of numbers and intermediate fractions, 
some one number, integral or fractional, may bear the 
same ratio to another as the side of a square bears to 
its diagonal ; f yet, however conceivable this may be, it 
may be demonstrated to be impossible. 

4. Mathematicians often require us to conceive things 
that are impossible, in order to prove them to be so. 
This is the case in all their demonstrations ad absur- 
dum. Conceive, says Euclid, a right line drawn from 
one point of the circumference of a circle to another 
to fall without the circle ; J I conceive this, 1 reason 
from it, until I come to a consequence that is mani- 
festly absurd ; and from thence conclude that the thing 
which I conceived is impossible. 

Having said so much to show that 'our power of con- 
ceiving a proposition is no criterion of its possibility or 
impossibility, I shall add a few observations on the 
extent of our knowledge of this kind. 

1. There are many propositions which, by the facul- 
ties God has given us, we judge to be necessary as 
well as true. All mathematical propositions are of this 
kind, and many others. The contradictories of such 

* All geometry is, in fact, founded on our intuitions of space ; that is, in 
common language, on our conceptions of space and its relations. — H. 

t We are able to conceive nothing infinite ; and we may suppose, but we 
cannot conceive, represent, or imagine, the possibility in question. — H. 

| Euclid does not require us to conceive or imagine any such impossi- 
bility. The proposition to which Reid must refer is the second of the 
third book of the Elements. — H. 

24 



278 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

propositions must be impossible. Our knowledge, 
therefore, of what is impossible must at least be as ex- 
tensive as our knowledge of necessary truth. 

2. By our senses, by memory, by testimony, and by 
other means, we know many things to be true which 
do not appear to be necessary. But whatever is true 
is possible. Our knowledge, therefore, of what is pos- 
sible must at least extend as far as our knowledge of 
truth. 

3. If a man pretends to determine the possibility or 
impossibility of things beyond these limits, let him 
bring proof. I do not say that no such proof can be 
brought. It has been brought in many cases, particu- 
larly in mathematics. But I say, that his being able to 
conceive a thing is no proof that it is possible* Mathe- 
matics afford many instances of impossibilities in the 
nature of things, which no man would have believed 
if they had not been strictly demonstrated. Perhaps, 
if we were able to reason demonstratively in other sub- 
jects to as great extent as in mathematics, we might 
find many things to be impossible which we conclude 
without hesitation to be possible. 

It is possible, you say, that God might have made a 
universe of sensible and rational creatures, into which 
neither natural nor moral evil should ever enter. It 
may be so for what I know : but how do you know 
that it is possible ? That you can conceive it, I grant ; 
but this is no proof. I cannot admit as an argument, 
or even as a pressing difficulty, what is grounded on 
the supposition that such a thing is possible, when there 
is no good evidence that it is possible, and, for any 
thing we know, it may in the nature of things be im- 
possible. 



* Not, certainly, that it is really possible, but that it is problematically pos- 
sible ; that is, involves no contradiction, violates no law of thought. This 
latter is that possibility alone in question. — H. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 279 



CHAPTER II. 

OF THE TKATN OF THOUGHT LN THE MIND; OR MEN- 
TAL ASSOCIATION. 

I. Preliminary Observations.] Every man is con- 
scious of a succession of thoughts which pass in his 
mind while he is awake, even when they are not excited 
by external objects.* 

This continued succession of thought has, by modern 
philosophers, been called the imagination.^ I think it 
was formerly called the fancy, or the phantasy. $ If the 
old name be laid aside, it were to be wished that it had 
got a name less ambiguous than that of imagination, 
a name which had two or three meanings besides. 

It is often called the train of ideas. This may lead 
one to think that it is a train of bare conceptions ; but 
this would surely be a mistake. It is made up of many 
other operations of mind, as well as of conceptions or 

* Mr. Mill, who follows Hume in the distinction which he makes be- 
tween impressions and ideas, begins his chapter on this subject thus : — 
" Thought succeeds thought, idea follows idea, incessantly, if our senses 
are awake, we are continually receiving sensations of the eye, the ear, the 
touch, and so forth ; but not sensations alone. After sensations, ideas are 
perpetually excited of sensations formerly received ; after those ideas, 
other ideas : and during the whole of our lives a series of those two states 
of consciousness, called sensations and ideas, is constantly going on. I see 
a horse : that is a sensation. Immediately I think of his master : that is 
an idea. The idea of his master makes me think of his office ; he is a 
minister of state : that is another idea. The idea of a minister of state 
makes me think of public affairs ; and I am led into a train of political 
ideas; when I am summoned to dinner. This is .a new sensation, fol- 
lowed by the idea of dinner and of the company with whom I am to par- 
take it. The sight of the company and of the food are other sensations ; 
these suggest ideas without end ; other sensations perpetually intervene, 
suggesting other ideas : and so the process goes on." Analysis, Chap. III. 
— Ed. 

t By some only, and that improperly. — H. 

J The Latin imaginatio, with its modifications in the vulgar lano-ua^es 
was employed both in ancient and modern times to express what "the 
Greeks denominated (pavrao-ia. Phantasy, of which pliansy or fancy is a 
corruption, and now employed in a more limited sense, was a common 
name for imagination with the old English writers. — H. 



280 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

ideas. Memory, judgment, reasoning, passions, affec- 
tions, and purposes, — in a word, every operation of 
the mind, excepting' those of sense, is exerted occasion- 
ally in this train of thought, and has its share as an 
ingredient : so that we must take the word idea in a 
very extensive sense, if we make the train of our 
thoughts to be only a train of ideas* 

To pass from the name and consider the thing, we 
may observe that the trains of thought in the mind are 
of two kinds : they are either such as flow spontane- 
ously, like water from a fountain, without any exertion 
of a governing principle to arrange them ; or they are 
regulated and directed by an active effort of the mind, 
with some view and intention. 

Before we consider these in their order, it is proper 
to premise, that these two kinds, however distinct in 
their nature, are for the most part mixed, in persons 
awake and come to years of understanding. On the 
one hand, we are rarely so vacant of all project and 
design as to let our thoughts take their own course 
without the least check or direction ; or if, at any time, 
we should be in this state, some object will present 
itself which is too interesting not to engage the atten- 
tion and rouse the active or contemplative powers that 
were at rest. On the other hand, when a man is giv- 
ing the most intense application to any speculation, or 
to any scheme of conduct, when he wills to exclude 
every thought that is foreign to his present purpose, 
such thoughts will often impertinently intrude upon 
him, in spite of his endeavours to the contrary, and 
occupy, by a kind of violence, some part of the time 
destined to another purpose. One man may have the 
command of his thoughts more than another man, and 
the same man more at one time than at another; but I 
apprehend, in the best-trained mind the thoughts will 
sometimes be restive, sometimes capricious and self- 

* Stewart and Mill, after Hartley, have proposed to call this succession 
of thought, association of ideas, and this is now the common name ; Dr. 
Brown would substitute suggestion for association; Sir W. Hamilton calls 
it mental suggestion or association. — Ed. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 281 

willed, when we wish to have them most under com- 
mand. 

It has been observed very justly, that we must not 
ascribe to the mind the poiver of calling- up any thought 
at pleasure, because such a call or volition supposes 
that thought to be already in the mind ; for otherwise, 
how should it be the object of volition? As this must 
be granted on the one hand, so it is no less certain, on 
the other, that a man has a considerable power in regu- 
lating and disposing his own thoughts. Of this every 
man is conscious, and I can no more doubt of it than 
I can doubt whether I think at all. 

We seem to treat the thoughts that present them- 
selves to the fancy, as a great man treats the persons who 
attend his levee. They are all ambitious of his atten- 
tion ; he goes round the circle, bestowing a bow upon 
one, a smile upon another, asks a short question of a 
third, while a fourth is honored with a particular con- 
ference, and the greater part have no particular mark of 
attention, but go as they came. It is true, he can give 
no mark of his attention to those who were not there, 
but he has a sufficient number for making a choice and 
distinction. In like manner, a number of thoughts pre- 
sent themselves to the fancy spontaneously ; but if we 
pay no attention to them, nor hold any conference with 
them,, they pass with the crowd, and are immediately 
forgotten as if they had never appeared. But those to 
which we think proper to pay attention may be stop- 
ped, examined, and arranged, for any particular purpose 
we have in view. 

It may likewise be observed, that a train of thought, 
which was at first composed by application and judg- 
ment, when it has been often repeated and becomes 
familiar, will present itself spontaneously. Thus, when 
a man has composed an air in music, so as to please 
his own ear, after he has played or sung it often, the 
notes will range themselves in just order, and it re- 
quires no effort to regulate their succession. 

Thus we see that the fancy is made up of trains of 
thinking, some of which are spontaneous, others studied 
24* 



282 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

and regulated, and the greater part are mixed of both 
kinds, and take their denomination from that which is 
most prevalent ; and that a train of thought, which at 
first was studied and composed, may by habit present 
itself spontaneously. 

Having premised these things, let us return to those 
trains of thought which are spontaneous, which must 
be first in the order of nature. 

II. Spontaneous Trains of Thought] When the 
work of the day is over, and a man lies down to relax 
his body and mind, he cannot cease from thinking, 
though he desires it. Something occurs to his fancy ; 
that is followed by another thing, and so his thoughts 
are carried on from one object to another until sleep 
closes the scene. 

In this operation * of the mind, it is not one faculty 
only that is employed ; there are many that join to- 
gether in its production. Sometimes the transactions 
of the day are brought upon the stage and acted over 
again, as it were, upon this theatre of the imagination. 
In this case, memory surely acts the most considerable 
part, since the scenes exhibited are not fictions, but 
realities, which we remember ; yet in this case the 
memory does not act alone, — other powers are em- 
ployed, and attend upon their proper objects. The 
transactions remembered will be more or less interest- 
ing ; and we cannot then review our own conduct, nor 
that of others, without passing some judgment upon 
it. This we approve, that we disapprove. This ele- 
vates, that humbles and depresses us. Persons that are 
not absolutely indifferent to us can hardly appear, even 
to the imagination, without some friendly or unfriendly 
emotion. We judge and reason about things, as well 
as persons, in such reveries. We remember what a 
man said and did ; from this we pass to his designs and 
to his general character, and frame some hypothesis to 

* The word process might be here preferable. Operation would denote 
that the mind is active in associating the train of thought. — H. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 283 

make the whole consistent. Such trains of thought we 
may call historical. 

There are others which we may call romantic, in 
which the plot is formed by the creative power of fancy, 
without any regard to what did or will happen. In 
these, also, the powers of judgment, taste, moral senti- 
ment, as well as the passions and affections, come in 
and take a share in the execution. In these scenes, the 
man himself commonly acts a very distinguished part, 
and seldom does any thing which he cannot approve. 
Here the miser will be generous, the coward brave, and 
the knave honest. Mr. Addison, in The Spectator, calls 
this play of the fancy castle-building. 

The young politician, who has turned his thoughts 
to the affairs of government, becomes in his imagina- 
tion a minister of state. He examines every spring 
and wheel of the machine of government with the 
nicest eye and the most exact judgment. He finds a 
proper remedy for every disorder of the commonwealth, 
quickens trade and manufactures by salutary laws, 
encourages arts and sciences, and makes the nation 
happy at home and respected abroad. He feels the 
reward of his good administration in that self-approba- 
tion which attends it, and is happy in acquiring, by his 
wise and patriotic conduct, the blessings of the present 
age and the praises of those that are to come. 

It is probable that, upon the stage of imagination, 
more great exploits have been performed in every age, 
than have been upon the stage of life from the begin- 
ning of the world. An innate desire of self-approba- 
tion is undoubtedly a part of the human constitution. 
It is a powerful spur to worthy conduct, and is intended 
as such by the Author of our being. A man cannot 
be easy or happy unless this desire be in some measure 
gratified. While he conceives himself worthless and 
base, he can relish no enjoyment. The humiliating, 
mortifying sentiment must be removed, and this natural 
desire of self-approbation will either produce a noble 
effort to acquire real worth, which is its proper direc- 
tion, or it will lead into some of those arts of self- 
deceit which create a false opinion of worth. 



284 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

A castle-builder, in the fictitious scenes of his fancy, 
will figure, not according to his real character, but 
according to the highest opinion he has been able to 
form of himself, and perhaps far beyond that opinion. 
For in those imaginary conflicts the passions easily 
yield to reason, and a man exerts the noblest efforts of 
virtue and magnanimity with the same ease as, in his 
dreams, he flies through the air, or plunges to the bot- 
tom of the ocean. 

The romantic scenes of fancy are most commonly 
the occupation of young minds, not yet so deeply en- 
gaged in life as to have their thoughts taken up by its 
real ca^es and business. Those active powers of the 
mind which are most luxuriant by constitution, or have 
been most 'cherished by education, impatient to exert 
themselves, hurry the thought into scenes that give 
them play ; and the boy commences in imagination, 
according to the bent of his mind, a general or a states- 
man, a poet or an orator. 

In persons come to maturity there is, even in these 
spontaneous sallies of fancy, some arrangement of 
thought ; and I conceive that it will be readily allowed, 
that, in those who have the greatest stock of knowledge 
and the best natural parts, even the spontaneous move- 
ments of fancy will be the most regular and connected. 
They have an order, connection, and unity, by which 
they are no less distinguished from the dreams of one 
asleep, or the ravings of one delirious, on the one hand, 
than from the finished productions of art, on the other. 

III. How what is regular in these Trains is to be ex- 
plained.] How is this regular arrangement brought 
about ? It has all the marks of judgment and reason, 
yet it seems to go before judgment, and to spring forth 
spontaneously. 

Shall we believe, with Leibnitz, that the mind was 
originally formed like a watch wound up, and that all 
its thoughts, purposes, passions, and actions are effected 
by the gradual evolution of the original spring of the 
machine, and succeed each other in order as necessarily 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 285 

as the motions and pulsations of a watch? If a child 
of three or four years were put to account for the phe- 
nomena of a watch, he would conceive that there is a 
little man within the watch, or some other little ani- 
mal, that beats continually and produces the motion. 
Whether the hypothesis of this young philosopher in 
turning the watch-spring into a man, or that of the 
German philosopher in turning a man into a watch- 
spring, be the most rational, seems hard to determine.* 

To account for the regularity of our thoughts from 
motions of animal spirits, vibrations of nerves, attrac- 
tions of ideas, or from any other unthinking cause, 
whether mechanical or contingent, seems equally irra- 
tional. 

If we be not able to distinguish the strongest marks 
of thought and design from the effects of mechanism 
or contingency, the consequence will be very melan- 
choly ; for it must necessarily follow, that we have no 
evidence of thought in any of our fellow-men, — nay, 
that we have no evidence of thought or design in the 
structure and government of the universe. If a good 
period or sentence was ever produced without having 
had any judgment previously employed about it, why 
not an Iliad or iEneid ? They differ only in less and 
more ; and we should do injustice to the philosopher 
of Laputa in laughing at his project of making poems 
by the turning of a wheel, if a concurrence of unthink- 
ing causes may produce a rational train of thought. 

It is, therefore, in itself highly probable, to say no 
more, that whatsoever is regular and rational in a train 
.of thought which presents itself spontaneously to a 
man's fancy, without any study, is a copy of what had 
been before composed by his own rational powers, or 
those of some other person. 

We certainly judge so in similar cases. Thus, in a 
book I find a train of thinking, which has the marks of 
knowledge and judgment. I ask how it was produced ? 



* The theory of our mental associations owes much to the philosophers 
of the Leibnitzian school. — H. 



286 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

It is printed in a book. This does not satisfy me, be- 
cause the book has no knowledge nor reason. I am 
told that a printer printed it, and a compositor set the 
types. Neither does this satisfy me. These causes 
perhaps knew very little of the subject. There must 
be a prior cause of the composition. It was printed 
from a manuscript. True. But the manuscript is as 
ignorant as the printed book. The manuscript was 
written or dictated by a man of knowledge and judg- 
ment. This, and this only, will satisfy a man of com- 
mon understanding ; and it appears to him extremely 
ridiculous to believe that such a train of thinking could 
originally be produced by any cause that neither rea- 
sons nor thinks. 

Whether such a train of thinking be printed in a 
book, or printed, so to speak, in his mind, and issue 
spontaneously from his fancy, it must have been com- 
posed with judgment by himself or by some other ra- 
tional being. 

This, I think, will be confirmed by tracing the prog- 
ress of the human fancy as far back as we are able. 

Man has undoubtedly a power (whether we call it 
taste or judgment is not of any consequence in the 
present argument) whereby he distinguishes between 
a composition and a heap of materials ; between a 
house, for instance, and a heap of stones ; between a 
sentence and a heap of words ; between a picture and 
a heap of colors. It does not appear to me, that chil- 
dren have any regular trains of thought until this power 
begins to operate. Those who are born such idiots as 
never to show any .signs of this power, show as little 
any signs of regularity of thought. It seems, there- 
fore, that this power is connected with all regular trains 
of thought, and may be the cause of them. 

Such trains of thought discover themselves in chil- 
dren about two years of age. They can then give 
attention to the operations of older children in making 
their little houses and ships, and other such things, in 
imitation of the works of men. They are then capable 
of understanding a little of language, which shows 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 287 

both a regular train of thinking and some degree of 
abstraction. I think we may perceive a distinction 
between the faculties of children of two or three years 
of age, and those of the most sagacious brutes. They 
can then perceive design and regularity in the works of 
others, especially of older children ; their little minds 
are fired with the discovery ; they are eager to imitate 
them, and never at rest till they can exhibit something 
of the same kind. 

As children grow up, they are delighted with tales, 
with childish games, with designs and stratagems. 
Every thing of this kind stores the fancy with a new 
regular train of thought, which becomes familiar by 
repetition, so that one part draws the whole after it in 
the imagination. The imagination of a child, like the 
hand of a painter, is long employed in copying the 
works of others before it attempts any invention of its 
own. 

The power of invention is not yet brought forth, but 
it is coming forward, and, like the bud of a tree, is 
ready to burst its integuments, when some accident 
aids its eruption. There is no power of the under- 
standing that gives so much pleasure to the owner as 
that of invention, whether it be employed in mechanics, 
in science, in the conduct of life, in poetry, in wit, or in 
the fine arts. I am aware that the power of invention 
is distributed among men more unequally than almost 
any other. "When it is able to produce any thing that 
is interesting to mankind, we call it genius, — a talent 
which is the lot of very few. But there is perhaps a 
lower kind or lower degree of invention, that is more 
common. However this may be, it must be allowed 
that the power of invention, in those who have it, will 
produce many new regular trains of thought, and these, 
being expressed in % works of art, in writing, or in dis- 
course, will be copied by others. 

Thus, I conceive the minds of children, as soon as 
they have judgment to distinguish what is regular, 
orderly, and connected from a mere medley of thought, 
are furnished with regular trains of thinking by these 



288 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

means. And the condition of man requires a longer 
infancy and youth than that of other animals ; for this 
reason, among others, that almost every station in civil 
society requires a multitude of regular trains of thought 
to be not only acquired, but to be made so familiar, by 
frequent repetition, as to present themselves spontane- 
ously when there is occasion for them. The imagina- 
tion even of men of good parts never serves them 
readily but in things wherein it has been much exer- 
cised. A minister of state holds a conference with a 
foreign ambassador with no greater emotion than a 
professor in a college prelects to his audience. The 
imagination of each presents to him what the occasion 
requires to be said, and how. Let them change places, 
and both would find themselves at a loss. 

The habits which the human mind is capable of 
acquiring by exercise are wonderful in many instances ; 
in none more wonderful than in that versatility of im- 
agination which a well-bred man acquires by being 
much exercised in the various scenes of life. In the 
morning he visits a friend in affliction. Here his im- 
agination brings forth from its store every topic of 
consolation, every thing that is agreeable to the laws of 
friendship and sympathy, and nothing that is not so. 
From thence he drives to the minister's levee, where 
imagination readily suggests what is proper to be said 
or replied to every man, and in what manner, accord- 
ing to the degree of acquaintance or familiarity, of rank 
or dependence, of opposition or concurrence of inter- 
ests, of confidence or distrust, that is between them. 
Nor does all this employment hinder him from carrying 
on some design with much artifice, and endeavouring 
to penetrate into the views of others through the closest 
disguises. From the levee he goes to the House of 
Commons, and speaks upon the affairs of the nation ; 
from thence to a ball or assembly, and entertains the 
ladies. 

When such habits are acquired and perfected, they 
are exercised without any laborious effort, — like the 
habit of playing upon an instrument of music. There 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 289 

are innumerable motions of the fingers upon the stops 
or keys, which must be directed in one particular train 
or succession. There is only one arrangement of those 
motions that is right, while there are ten thousand that 
are wrong, and would spoil the music. The musician 
thinks not in the least of the arrangement of those 
motions ; he has a distinct idea of the tune, and wills 
to play it. The motions of the fingers arrange them- 
selves so as to answer his intention. 

In like manner, when a man speaks upon a subject 
with which he is acquainted, there is a certain arrange- 
ment of his thoughts and words necessary to make his 
discourse sensible, pertinent, and grammatical. In 
every sentence there are more rules of grammar, logic, 
and rhetoric that may be transgressed, than there are 
words and letters. He speaks without thinking of any 
of those rules, and yet observes them all, as if they 
were all in his eye. This is a habit so similar to that 
of a player on an instrument, that I think both must 
be got in the same way, that is, by much practice and 
the power of habit. When a man speaks well and 
methodically upon a subject without study, and with 
perfect ease, I believe we may take it for granted that 
his thoughts run in a beaten track. There is a mould 
in his mind, which has been formed by much practice, 
or by study, for this very subject, or for some other so 
similar and analogous, that his discourse falls into this 
mould with ease, and takes its form from it. 

Hitherto we have considered the operations of fancy 
that are either spontaneous, or at least require no 
laborious effort to guide and direct them, and have 
endeavoured to account for that degree of regularity 
and arrangement which is found even in them. (1.) The 
natural powers of judgment and invention, (2.) the 
pleasure that always attends the exercise of those 
powers, (3.) the means we have of improving them by 
imitation of others, and (4.) the effect of practice and 
habit, seem to me sufficiently to account for this phe- 
nomenon, without supposing any unaccountable attrac- 
tions of ideas by which they arrange themselves. 
25 



290 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

IV. Trains of Thought directed and regulated by the 
Will.] But we are able to direct our thoughts in a cer- 
tain course, so as to perform a destined task. 

Every work of art has its model framed in the imagi- 
nation. Here the Iliad of Homer, the Republic of 
Plato, the Principia of Newton, were fabricated. Shall 
we believe that those works took the form in which 
they now appear of themselves ? — that the sentiments, 
the manners, and the passions arranged themselves at 
once in the mind of Homer so as to form the Iliad ? 
Was there no more effort in the composition than there 
is in telling a well-known tale, or singing a favorite 
song ? This cannot be believed. Granting that some 
happy thought first suggested the design of smging the 
wrath of Achilles, yet, surely, it was a matter of judg- 
ment and choice where the narration should begin, and 
where it should end. Granting that the fertility of the 
poet's imagination suggested a variety of rich materials, 
was not judgment necessary to select what was proper, 
to reject what was improper, to arrange the materials 
into a just composition, and to adapt them to each other 
and to the design of the whole ? No man can believe 
that Homer's ideas, merely by certain sympathies and 
antipathies, by certain attractions and repulsions in- 
herent in their natures, arranged themselves according 
to the most perfect rules of epic poetry, and Newton's 
according to the rules of mathematical composition. 
I should sooner believe that the poet, after he invoked 
his Muse, did nothing at all but listen to the song of 
the goddess. Poets, indeed, and other artists, must 
make their works appear natural; but nature is the 
perfection of art, and there can be no just imitation of 
nature without art. When the building is finished, the 
rubbish, the scaffolds, the tools, and engines, are car- 
ried out of sight, but we know it could not have been 
reared without them. 

The train of thinking, therefore, is capable of being 
guided and directed, much in the same manner as the 
horse we ride.* The horse has his strength, his agility, 

* Mr. Stewart is obliged to admit that the mind has no direct power 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 291 

and his mettle in himself; he has been taught certain 
movements, and many useful habits that will make 
him more subservient to our purposes, and obedient to 
our will; but to accomplish a journey, he must be di- 
rected by the rider. 

In like manner, fancy has its original powers, which 
are very different in different persons ; it has likewise 
more regular motions, to which it has been trained by 
a long course of discipline and exercise; and by which 
it may, extempore, and without much effort, produce 
things that have a considerable degree of beauty, regu- 
larity, and design. But the most perfect works of de- 
sign are never extemporary. Our first thoughts are re- 
viewed ; we place them at a proper distance ; examine 
every part, and take a complex view of the whole. By 
our critical faculties, we perceive this part to be redun- 
dant, that deficient ; here is a want of nerves, there 
a want of delicacy ; this is obscure, that too diffuse. 
Things are marshalled anew, according to a second 
and more deliberate judgment ; what was deficient is 
supplied ; what was dislocated is put in joint ; redun- 
dances are lopped off, and the whole polished. 

over the train of our thoughts ; that is, we cannot call up at will a particu- 
lar thought, as this would be to suppose it already in the mind. But it 
has a twofold indirect power. 1 . In the first place, it has the power of 
singling out at pleasure any one idea in the train, detaining it, and making 
it a particular object of attention. " By doing so, we not only stop the 
succession that would otherwise take place, but, in consequence of our 
bringing to view the less obvious relations among our ideas, we frequently 
divert the current of our thoughts into a new channel. 2. But the princi- 
pal power we possess over the train of our ideas is founded on the influ- 
ence which our habits of thinking have on the laws of association ; — an 
influence which is so great, that we may form a pretty shrewd judgment 
concerning a man's prevailing turn of thought from the transitions he 
makes in conversation or in writing. It is well known, too, that by means 
of habit a particular associating principle may be strengthened to such a 
degree, as to give us a command of all the different ideas in our mind 
which have a certain relation to each other ; so that, when any one of the 
class occurs to us, we have almost a certainty that it will suggest the rest. 
Thus, a man who has an ambition to become a punster seldom or never 
fails in the attainment of his object ; that is, he seldom or never fails in 
acquiring the power which other men have not, of summoning up, on a 
particular occasion, a number of words different from each other in mean- 
ing, but resembling each other, more or less, in sound." — Elements, Part I. 
Chap. V. Sect. IK. — Ed. 



292 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

Though poets, of all artists, make the highest claim 
to inspiration, yet if we believe Horace, a competent 
judge, no production in that art can have merit, which 
has not cost such labor as this in the birth. 

" Vos ! 

Pompilius sanguis, carmen reprehendite quod non 
Multa dies, et multa litura coercuit, atque 
Perfectum decies non castigavit ad unguem." 

The conclusion I would draw from all that has been 
said upon this subject is, that every thing that is regu- 
lar in that train of thought which we call fancy or 
imagination, from the little designs and reveries of chil- 
dren to the grandest productions of human genius, was 
originally the offspring of judgment or taste, applied icith 
some effort greater or less. What one person composed 
with art and judgment is imitated by another with great 
ease. What a man himself at first composed with 
pains becomes by habit so familiar, as to offer itself 
spontaneously to his fancy afterwards. But nothing 
that is regular was ever at first conceived without de- 
sign, attention, and care. 

V. Laws or Conditions of Mental Association.] I 
shall now make a few reflections upon a theory which 
has been applied to account for this successive train of 
thought in the mind. It was hinted by Mr. Hobbes, 
but has drawn more attention since it was distinctly 
explained by Mr. Hume. 

That author thinks, that the train of thought in the 
mind is owing to a kind of attraction which ideas have 
for other ideas that bear certain relations to them. He 
thinks the complex ideas, which are the common sub- 
jects of our thoughts and reasoning, are owing to the 
same cause. The relations which produce this attrac- 
tion of ideas, he thinks, are these three only, — to wit, 
causation, contiguity in lime or place, and similitude. 
He asserts, that these are the only general principles 
that unite ideas. And having, in another place, occa- 
sion to take notice of contrariety as a principle of con- 
nection among ideas, in order to reconcile this to his 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 



293 



system, he tells us gravely, that contrariety may per- 
haps be considered as a mixture of causation and resem- 
blance. That ideas which have any of these three rela- 
tions do mutually attract each other, so that, one of 
them being presented to the fancy, the other is drawn 
along with it, — this he seems to think an original 
property of the mind, or rather of the ideas, and there- 
fore inexplicable.* 

* The history of the doctrine of association has never yet been at all 
adequately developed. Some of the most remarkable speculations on this 
matter are wholly unknown. Mr. Hume says, — "I do not find that any 
philosopher has attempted to enumerate or class all the principles of asso- 
ciation ; a subject, however, that seems to me very worthy of curiosity. 
To me there appear to be only three principles of connection among ideas : 
resemblance, contiguity in time or place, cause and effect.' 1 '' — Essays, Vol.11, 
p. 24. Aristotle, and, after him, many other philosophers, had, however, 
done this, and with even greater success than Hume himself. Aristotle's 
reduction is to the four following heads : — proximity in time, contiguity in 
place, resemblance, contrast. This is more correct than Hume's ; for Hume's 
second head ought to be divided into two ; while our connecting any par- 
ticular events in the relation of cause and effect is itself the result of their 
observed proximity in time and contiguity in place ; nay, to custom and 
this empirical connection (as observed by Reid) does Hume himself en- 
deavour to reduce the principle of causality altogether. — H. 

Tn his Supplementary Dissertations, Note D**, Sir W. Hamilton returns 
to the subject, reaffirming that all the attempts which have been made un- 
der the name of Histories of the Association of Ideas are fragmentary contri- 
butions, and meagre and inaccurate as far as they go. " These inade- 
quate attempts," he also says, " have been limited to Germany ; and in 
Germany to the treatises of three authors ; for the historical notices on 
this doctrine, found in the works of other German psychologists, are wholly 
borrowed from them. I refer to the Geschichte of Hissmann (1777) ; to 
the Paralipomena and Beytrmge of Maass (1787, 1792) ; and to the Vestigia 
of Goerenz (1791). In England, indeed, we have a chapter in Mr. Cole- 
ridge's Biographia Literaria, entitled, On the Law of Association, — its His- 
tory traced from Aristotle to Hartley ; but this, in so far as it is of any value, 
is a plagiarism, and a blundering plagiarism, from Maass; — the whole 
chapter exhibiting, in fact, more "mistakes than paragraphs. We may 
judge of Mr. Coleridge's competence to speak of Aristotle, the great phi- 
losopher of ancient times, when we find him referring to the De Anima for 
his speculations on the associative principle ; opposing the De Memoria and 
Parva Naturalia as distinct works; and attributing to Aquinas what be- 
longs exclusively and notoriously to the Stagiritc. We may judge of his 
competence to speak of Descartes, the great philosopher of modern times, 
when telling us, that idea, in the Cartesian philosophy, denotes merely a 
configuration of the brain ; the term, he adds, being first extended' by 
Locke to denote the immediate object of the mind's attention in conscious- 
ness Sir James Mackintosh, again, founding on his own research, 

affirms that Aristotle and his disciples, among whom Vives is specified, 
confine the application of the law of association ' exclusively to the phenomena 

25* 



294 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

First, I observe with regard to this theory, that, al- 
though it is true that the thought of any object is apt 
to lead us to the thought of its cause or effect, of things 
contiguous to it in time or place, or of things resem- 
bling it, yet this enumeration of the relations of things 
which are apt to lead us from one object to another is 
very inaccurate. 

The enumeration is too large upon his own princi- 
ples ; but it is by far to*o scanty in reality. Causation, 
according to his philosophy, implies nothing more than 
a constant conjunction observed between the cause and 
the effect, and therefore contiguity must include causa- 
tion, and his three principles of attraction are reduced 
to two. But when we take all the three, the enumera- 
tion is in reality very incomplete. Every relation of 
things has a tendency, more or less, to lead the thought, 
in a thinking mind, from one to the other ; and not only 
every relation, but every kind of contrariety and opposi- 
tion* What Mr. Hume says, — that contrariety may 
perhaps be considered as a mixture " of causation and 



of recollection, without any glimpse of a more general operation extending 
to all the connections of thought and feeling'' ; while the enouncement of a 
general theory of association, thus denied to the genius of Aristotle, is all, 
and more than all, accorded to the sagacity of Hobbes. The truth, how- 
ever, is, that in his whole doctrine upon this subject, name and thing, 
Hobbes is simply a silent follower of the Stagirite ; inferior to his master 
in the comprehension and accuracy of his general views, and not superior, 
even on the special points selected, either to Aristotle or to Vives." — Ed. 
* Still something may be gained by a judicious classification of the con- 
ditions and relations on which mental association depends. Dr. Brown, 
who has bestowed much attention on this subject, reduces the primary laws 
of association or suggestion to three : resemblance, contrast, nearness in time 
or place. These correspond to the four* of Aristotle, the third being divisi- 
ble into two. Again, Dr. Brown thinks that the influence of the three 
primary laws is modified, in different persons and under different circum- 
stances, by nine secondary laws. The latter are : — 1 . The longer or shorter 
continuance of the attention which was given to the associated ideas when 
in connection. 2. Vividness of the coexistent emotions. 3. Frequency of 
repetition. 4. Lapse of time. 5. The exclusion of all other associations. 
6. Original constitutional differences. 7. The state of the mind at the time. 
8. The state of the body. 9. Professional habits. See his Physiology of 
the Mind, p. 199, and also his Lectures, Lect. XXXV. -XXXVII. Com- 
pare Ballantyne's Examination of the Human Mind, Chap. II.; Mill's Analy- 
sis, Chap. III. ; and Sir W. Hamilton's Supplementary Dissertations, Note 
D***.— Ed. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 295 

resemblance," — I can as little comprehend, as if he had 
said that figure may perhaps be considered as a mixture 
of color and sound. 

Our thoughts pass easily from the end to the means ; 
from any truth to the evidence on which it is founded, 
the consequences that may be drawn from it, or the use 
that may be made of it. From a part we are easily 
led to think of the whole, from a subject to its qualities, 
or from things related to the relation. Such transitions 
in thinking must have been made thousands of times by 
every man who thinks and reasons, and thereby become, 
as it were, beaten tracks for the imagination. 

Not only the relations of objects to each other influ- 
ence our train of thinking, but the relation they bear to 
the present temper and disposition of the mind ; their 
relation to the habits we have acquired, whether moral 
or intellectual ; to the company we have kept, and to 
the business in which we have been chiefly employed. 
The same event will suggest very different reflections 
to different persons, and to the same person at different 
times, according as he is in good or bad humor, as he is 
lively or dull, angry or pleased, melancholy or cheerful. 

Secondly, Let us consider how far this attraction of 
ideas must be resolved into original qualities of human 
nature. 

I believe the original principles of the mind, of which 
we can give no account but that such is our constitu- 
tion, are more in number than is commonly thought. 
But we ought not to multiply them without necessity. 
That trains of thinking, which by frequent repetition 
have become familiar, should spontaneously offer them- 
selves to our fancy, seems to require no other original 
quality but the power of habit* In all rational think- 



* We can as well explain habit by association, as association by habit. — H. 

Better even, according to Mr. Stewart, who says : — " The wonderful 
effect of practice in the formation of habits has been often and justly taken 
notice of, as one of the most curious circumstances in the human constitu- 
tion. A mechanical operation, for example, which we at first performed 
with the utmost difficulty, comes, in time, to be so familiar to us, that we 
are able to perform it without the smallest danger of mistake ; even while 



296 CONCEPTION, OR SIMPLE APPREHENSION. 

ing, and in all rational discourse, whether serious or fa- 
cetious, the thought must have some relation to what 
went before. Every man, therefore, from the dawn of 
reason, must have been accustomed to a train of related 
objects. These please the understanding, and by custom 
become like beaten tracks which invite the traveller. 

As far as it is in our power to give a direction to our 
thoughts (which it is, undoubtedly, in a great degree), 
they will be directed by the active principles common 
to men, — by our appetites, our passions, our affections, 
our reason, and conscience. And that the trains of 
thinking in our minds are chiefly governed by these, 
according as one or another prevails at the time, every 
man will find in his experience. If the mind is at any 
time vacant from every passion and desire, there are 
still some objects that are more acceptable to us than 
others. The facetious man is pleased with surprising 
similitudes or contrasts ; the philosopher, with the rela- 
tions of things that are subservient to reasoning ; the 
merchant, with what tends to profit; and the politician, 
with what may mend the state. 

Nevertheless, I believe we are originally disposed, in 
imagination, to pass from any one object of thought to 
others that are contiguous to it in time or place. This 
I think may be observed in brutes and in idiots, as well 
as in children, before any habit can be acquired that 
might account for it. The sight of an object is apt to 
suggest to the imagination what has been seen or felt 
in conjunction with it, even when the memory of that 
conjunction is gone. They expect events in the same 
order and succession in which they happened before-; 
and by this expectation, their actions and passions, as 
well as their thoughts, are regulated. A horse takes 



tlie attention appears to be completely engaged with other subjects. The 
truth seems to be, that, in consequence of the association of ideas, the different 
steps of the process present themselves successively to the thoughts, with- 
out any recollection on our part, and with a degree of rapidity proportioned 
to the length of our experience, so as to save us the trouble of hesitation 
and reflection, by giving us every moment a precise and steady notion of 
the effect to be produced." — Elements, Part I. Chap. II. — Ed. 



ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS. 297 

fright at the place where some object frighted him be- 
fore. We are apt to conclude from this, that he re- 
members the former accident. But perhaps there is 
only an association formed in his mind between the 
place and the passion of fear, without any distinct re- 
membrance. 

Mr. Locke has given us a very good chapter upon 
the association of ideas ; and, by the examples he has 
given to illustrate this doctrine, I think it appears that 
very strong associations may be formed at once ; not 
of ideas to ideas only, but of ideas to passions and emo- 
tions ; and that strong associations are never formed at 
once, but when accompanied by some strong passion or 
emotion. I believe this must also be resolved into the 
constitution of our nature. 

It will be allowed by every man, that our happiness 
or misery in life, that our improvement in any art or 
science which we profess, and that our improvement in 
real virtue and goodness, depend in a very great degree 
on the train of thinking that occupies the mind both in 
our vacant and in our more serious hours. As far, 
therefore, as the direction of our thoughts is in our 
power (and that it is so in a great measure cannot be 
doubted), it is of the last* importance to give them that 
direction which is most subservient to those valuable 
purposes. How happy is that mind, in which the light 
of real knowledge dispels the phantoms of superstition ; 
in which the belief and reverence of a perfect all-govern- 
ing Mind casts out all fear but the fear of acting wrong ; 
in which serenity and cheerfulness, innocence, humanity, 
and candor, guard the imagination against the entrance 
of every unhallowed intruder, and invite more amiable 
and worthier guests to dwell ! * 

* On the doctrine of mental association the student may consult with 
advantage, in addition to the works already indicated, Dr. Priestley's 
Hartley's Theory of the Human Mind, on the Principle of the Association of 
Ideas; with Essays relating to the Subject of it ; Cardaillac, Etudes Elemen- 
taires de Philosophic, Sect. V.; Systematic Education, Vol. II. Chap. XIII., 
by Dr. Lant Carpenter. The important subject of casual associations, and 
their influence on character and happiness, has been treated most fully and 
satisfactorily by Mr. Stewart, Elements, Part I. Chap. V. — Ed. 



ESSAY V. 

OF ABSTRACTION. 



CHAPTER I. 

OF GENERAL WORDS. 

I. The Distinction between General Words and Proper 
Names.] The words we use in language are either 
general words or proper names. Proper names are in- 
tended to signify one individual only. Such are the 
names of men, kingdoms, provinces, cities, rivers, and 
of every other creature of God, or work of man, which 
we choose to distinguish from all others of the kind by 
a name appropriated to it. Ajl the other words of lan- 
guage are general words, not appropriated to signify 
any one individual thing, but equally related to many. 

In every language, rude or polished, general words 
make the greater part, and proper names the less. 
Grammarians have reduced all words to eight or nine 
classes, which are called parts of speech. Of these 
there is only one — to wit, that of nouns — wherein 
proper names are found. All pronouns, verbs, partici- 
ples, adverbs, articles, prepositions, conjunctions, and in- 
terjections are general words. Of nouns, all adjectives 
are general words, and the greater part of substantives. 
Every substantive that has a plural number is a general 
word ; for no proper name can have a plural number, 
because it signifies only one individual. In all the fif- 
teen books of Euclid's Elements, there is not one word 
that is not general ; and the same may be said of many 
large volumes. 



OF GENERAL WORDS. 299 

At the same time it must be acknowledged, that all 
the objects we perceive are individuals. Every object 
of sense, of memory, or of consciousness is an indi- 
vidual object. All the good things we enjoy or desire, 
and all the evils we feel or fear, must come from indi- 
viduals ; and I think we may venture to say, that every 
creature which God has made, in the heavens above, or 
in the earth beneath, or in the waters under the earth, 
is an individual. 

II. Wliy General Words are so much more numerous.] 
How comes it to pass, then, that in all languages 
general words make the greatest part of the language, 
and proper names but a very small and inconsiderable 
part of it ? This seemingly strange phenomenon may, 
I think, be easily accounted for by the following obser- 
vations. 

First, though there be a few individuals that are ob- 
vious to the notice of all men, and therefore have 
proper names in all languages, — such as the sun and 
moon, the earth and sea, — yet the greatest part of the 
things to which we think fit to give proper names are 
local; known perhaps to a village or to a neighbour- 
hood, but unknown to the greater part of those who 
speak the same language, and to all the rest of man- 
kind. The names of such things, being confined to a 
corner, and having no names answering to them in 
other languages, are not accounted apart of the language, 
any more than the customs of a particular hamlet are 
accounted part of the law of the nation. 

Secondly, it may be observed, that every individual 
object that falls within our view has various attributes ; 
and it is by them that it becomes useful or hurtful to 
us. We know not the essence of any individual object ; 
all the knowledge we can attain of it is the knowledge 
of its attributes, — its quantity, its various qualities, its 
various relations to other things, its place, its situation, 
and motions. It is by such attributes of things only 
that we can communicate our knowledge of them to 
others. By their attributes, our hopes or fears from 



300 



ABSTRACTION. 



them are regulated ; and it is only by attention to their 
attributes that we can make them subservient to our 
ends ; and therefore we give names to such attributes. 

Now all attributes must from their nature be ex- 
pressed by general words, and are so expressed in all 
languages. In the ancient philosophy, attributes in 
general were called by two names which express their 
nature. They were called universals, because they 
might belong equally to many individuals, and are not 
confined to one. They were also called predicables, 
because whatever is predicated, that is, affirmed or de- 
nied, of one subject may be of more, and therefore is a 
universal, and expressed by a general word. A predica- 
te, therefore, signifies the same thing as an attribute, 
with this difference only, that the first is Latin, the last 
English.* The attributes we find either in the creatures 
of God, or in the works of men, are common to many 
individuals. We either find it to be so, ox presume it 
may be so, and give them the same name in every sub- 
ject to which they belong. 

There are not only attributes belonging to individual 
subjects, but there are likewise attributes of attributes, 
which may be called secondary attributes. Most attri- 
butes are capable of different degrees, and different 
modifications, which must be expressed by general 
words. Thus it is an attribute of many bodies to be 
moved; but motion may be in an endless variety of 
directions. It may be quick or slow, rectilineal or 
curvilineal ; it may be equable, or accelerated, or re- 
tarded. 

As all attributes, therefore, whether primary or secon- 
dary, are expressed by general words, it follows, that, 
in every proposition we express in language, what is 
affirmed or denied of the subject of the proposition 
must be expressed by general words. 

Thirdly, the same faculties by which we distinguish 



* They are both Latin, or both English. The only difference is, that 
the one is of technical, the other of popular application, and that the for- 
mer expresses as potential what the latter does as actual. — H. 



OF GENERAL WORDS. 301 

the different attributes belonging to the same subject, 
and give names to them, enable us likewise to observe, 
that many subjects agree in certain attributes, while 
they differ in others. By this means we are enabled to 
reduce individuals, which are infinite, to a limited num- 
ber of classes, which are called kinds and sorts ; and, in 
the scholastic language, genera and species. Observing 
many individuals to agree in certain attributes, we re- 
fer them all to one class, and give a name to the class. 
This name comprehends in its signification, not one at- 
tribute only, but all the attributes which distinguish 
that class ; and by affirming this name of any indi- 
vidual, we affirm it to have all the attributes which 
characterize the class : thus men, dogs, horses, elephants, 
are so many different classes of animals. In like man- 
ner we marshal other substances, vegetable and inani- 
mate, into classes. Nor is it only substances that we 
thus form into classes. We do the same with regard 
to qualities, relations, actions, affections, passions, and 
all other things. 

"When a class is very large, it is divided into subor- 
dinate classes in the same manner. The higher class 
is called a genus or kind ; the lower, a species or sort 
of the higher. Sometimes a species is still subdivided 
into subordinate species ; and this subdivision is carried 
on as far as is found convenient for the purpose of lan- 
guage, or for the improvement of knowledge. 

In this distribution of things into genera and species, 
it is evident that the name of the species comprehends 
more attributes than the name of the genus. The spe- 
cies comprehends all that is in the genus, and those 
attributes likewise which distinguish that species from 
others belonging to the same genus ; and the more sub- 
divisions we make, the names of the lower become still 
the more comprehensive in their signification, but the 
less extensive in their application to individuals. 

Hence it is an axiom in logic, that, the more exten- 
sive any general term is, it is the less comprehensive ; 
and, on the contrary, the more comprehensive, the less 
extensive. Thus, in the following series of subordinate 
26 



302 ABSTRACTION. 

general terms, — animal, man, Frenchman, Parisian, — 
every subsequent term comprehends in its signification 
all that is in the preceding, and something more ; and 
every antecedent term extends to more individuals than 
the subsequent. 

Such divisions and subdivisions of things into genera 
and species, with general names, are not confined to 
the learned and polished languages ; they are found in 
those of the rudest tribes of mankind : from which we 
learn, that the invention and the use of general words, 
both to signify the attributes of things, and to signify 
the genera and species of things, is not a subtile inven- 
tion of philosophers, but an operation which all men 
perform by the light of common sense. Philosophers 
may speculate about this operation, and reduce it to 
canons and aphorisms ; but men of common under- 
standing, without knowing any thing of the philosophy 
of it, can put it in practice ; in like manner as. they can 
see objects, and make good use of their eyes, although 
they know nothing of the structure of the eye, or of the 
theory of vision* 



* This is well illustrated by Adam Smith in the following passage, taken 
from the beginning of his Considerations concerning the First Formation of 
Languages: — " The assignation of particular names to denote particular 
objects, that is, the institution of nouns substantive, would, probably, be 
one of the first steps towards the formation of language. Two savages, 
who had never been taught to speak, but had been bred up remote from 
the societies of men, would naturally begin to form that language, by which 
they would endeavour to make their mutual wants intelligible to each other, 
by uttering certain sounds, whenever they meant to denote certain objects. 
Those objects only which were most familiar to them, and which they had 
most frequent occasion to mention, would have particular names assigned 
to them. The particular cave whose covering sheltered- them from the 
weather, the particular tree whose fruit relieved their hunger, the particular 
fountain whose waters allayed their thirst, would first be. denominated by 
the words cave, tree, fountain, or by whatever other appellations they might 
think proper, in that primitive jargon, to mark them. Afterwards, when 
the more enlarged experience of these savages had led them to observe, 
and their necessary occasions obliged them to make mention of, other 
caves, and other trees, and other fountains, they would naturally bestow 
upon each of those new objects the same name by which they had been 
accustomed to express the similar object they were first acquainted with. 
And thus those words, which were originally the proper names of indi- 
viduals, would each of them insensibly become the common name of a 
multitude." — Ed. 



OF GENERAL WORDS. 303 

III. General Words the Signs of General Concep- 
tions.] As general words are so necessary in language, 
it is natural to conclude that there must be general con- 
ceptions, of which they are the signs. Words are empty 
sounds when they do not signify the thoughts of the 
speaker ; and it is only from their signification that 
they are denominated general. Every word that is 
spoken, considered merely as a sound, is an individual 
sound. And it can only be called a general word, be- 
cause that which it signifies is general. Now that 
which it signifies is conceived by the mind both of the 
speaker and hearer, if the word have a distinct mean- 
ing, and be distinctly understood. It is therefore im- 
possible that words can have a general signification, 
unless there be conceptions in the mind of the speaker, 
and of the hearer, of things that are general. 

We are therefore here to consider whether we have 
such general conceptions, and how they are formed. 

To begin with the conceptions expressed by general 
terms, that is, by such general words as may be the 
subject or the predicate of a proposition. They are 
either attributes of things, or they are genera or species 
of things. 

It is evident, with respect to all the individuals we 
are acquainted with, that we have a more clear and 
distinct conception of their attributes, than of the sub- 
ject to which those attributes belong. 

Take, for instance, any individual body we have 
access to know, — what conception do we form of it ? 
Every man may know this from his consciousness. He 
will find that he conceives it as a thing that has length, 
breadth, and thickness, such a figure, and such a color ; 
that it is hard, or soft, or fluid ; that it has such quali- 
ties, and is fit for such purposes. If it is a vegetable, 
he may know where it grew, what is the form of its 
leaves, and flower, and seed ; if an animal, what are its 
natural instincts, its manner of life, and of rearing its 
young. Of these attributes belonging to this indi- 
vidual, and numberless others, he may surely have a 
distinct conception ; and he will find words in language 



304 ABSTRACTION. 

by which he can clearly and distinctly express each of 
them. 

Indeed, the attributes of individuals are all that we 
distinctly conceive about them. It is true, we conceive 
a subject to which the attributes belong; but of this 
subject, when its attributes are set aside, we have but 
an obscure and relative conception, whether it be body 
or mind. 

The other class of general terms are those that sig- 
nify the genera and species into which we divide and 
subdivide things. And if we be able to form distinct 
conceptions of attributes, it cannot surely be denied 
that we may have distinct conceptions of genera and 
species ; because they are only collections of attributes 
which we conceive to exist in a subject, and to which 
we give a general name. If the attributes compre- 
hended under that general name be distinctly con- 
ceived, the thing meant by the name must be distinctly 
conceived. And the name may justly be attributed to 
every individual which has those attributes. 

Thus, I conceive distinctly what it is to have wings, 
to be covered with feathers, to lay eggs. Suppose, 
then, that we give the name of bird to every animal 
that has these three attributes. Here, undoubtedly, my 
conception of a bird is as distinct as my notion of the 
attributes which are common to this species : and if 
this be admitted to be the definition of a bird, there is 
nothing I conceive more distinctly. If I had never 
seen a bird, and can but be made to understand the 
definition, I can easily apply it to every individual of 
the species, without danger of mistake. 

When things are divided and subdivided by men of 
science, and names given to the genera and species, 
those names are defined. Thus, the genera and species 
of plants, and of other natural bodies, are accurately 
denned by the writers in the various branches of natural 
history ; so that, to all future generations, the definition 
will convey a distinct notion of the genus or species 
defined. 

There are, without doubt, many words signifying 



OF GENERAL WORDS. 305 

genera and species of things, which have a meaning 
somewhat vague and indistinct; so that those who 
speak the same language do not always use them in 
the same sense. But if we attend to the cause of this 
indistinctness, we shall find, that it is not owing to 
their being general terms, but to this, that there is no 
definition of them that has authority. Their meaning, 
therefore, has not been learned by a definition, but by 
a kind of induction, — by observing to what individuals 
they are applied by those who understand the lan- 
guage. We learn by habit to use them as we see 
others do, even when we have not a precise meaning 
annexed to them. A man may know, that to certain 
individuals they may be applied with propriety; but 
whether they can be applied to certain other individ- 
uals, he may be uncertain, either from want of good 
authorities, or from having contrary authorities, which 
leave him in doubt. 

Thus, a man may know, that, when he applies the 
name of beast to a lion or tiger, and the name of bird 
to an eagle or a turkey, he speaks properly. But 
whether a bat be a bird or a beast, he may be uncertain. 
If there were any accurate definition of a beast and of a 
toird, that is of sufficient authority, he could be at no loss. 

A genus or species, being a collection of attributes, 
conceived to exist in one subject, a definition is the 
only way to prevent any addition or diminution of its 
ingredients in the conception of different persons ; and 
when there is no definition that can be appealed to as 
a standard, the name will hardly retain the most per- 
fect precision in its signification. 

My design at present being only to show that we 
have general conceptions no less clear and distinct than 
those of individuals, it is sufficient for this purpose, if 
this appears with regard to the conceptions expressed 
by general terms. To conceive the meaning of a gen- 
eral word, and to conceive that which it signifies, is the 
same thing. We conceive distinctly the meaning of 
general terms, therefore we conceive distinctly that 
which they signify. But such terms do not signify any 
26* 



306 ABSTRACTION. 

individual, but what is common to many individuals ; 
therefore we have a distinct conception of things com- 
mon to many individuals, that is, we have distinct gen- 
eral conceptions. 

We must here beware of the ambiguity of the word 
conception, which sometimes signifies the act of the 
mind in conceiving, sometimes the thing conceived, 
which is the object of that act.* If the word be taken 
in the first sense, I acknowledge that every act o£ the 
mind is an individual act ; the universality, therefore, 
is not in the act of the mind, but in the object, or thing 
conceived. The thing conceived is an attribute com- 
mon to many subjects, or it is a genus or species com- 
mon to many individuals.! 



CHAPTER II. 

OF THE FOKMATTON OF GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 

I. Distribution of the Subject.] We are next to con- 
sider the operations of the understanding, by which we 
are enabled to form general conceptions. These ap- 
pear to me to be three : — 

First, The resolving or analyzing a subject into its 
known attributes, and giving a name to each attribute, 
which name shall signify that attribute, and nothing 
more. 

Secondly, The observing one or more such attributes 
to be common to many subjects. 

The first is by philosophers called abstraction ; the 
second may be called generalizing ; but both are com- 
monly included under the name of abstraction. 



* This last should be called concept, which was a term in use with the 
old English philosophers. — H. 

t On the whole subject of names and naming, see James Mill's Analysis, 
Vol. I. p. 83 et seq. ; WhewelFs Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Vol. L, 
Aphorisms ; and J. S. Mill's System of Logic, Book I. — Ed. 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 307 

It is difficult to say which of them goes first, or 
whether they are not so closely connected that neither 
can claim the precedence. For, on the one hand, to 
perceive an agreement between two or more objects in 
the same attribute, seems to require nothing more than 
to compare them together. A savage, upon seeing 
snow and chalk, would find no difficulty in perceiving 
that they have the same color. Yet, on the other hand, 
it seems impossible that he should observe this agree- 
ment without abstraction, — that is, distinguishing in his 
conception the color, wherein those two objects agree, 
from the other qualities wherein they disagree. 

It seems, therefore, that we cannot generalize with- 
out some degree of abstraction ; but I apprehend we 
may abstract without generalizing. For what hinders 
me from attending to the whiteness of the paper before 
me, without applying that color to any other object ? 
The whiteness of this individual object is an abstract 
conception, but not a general one, while applied to one 
individual only. These two operations, however, are 
subservient to each other ; for the more attributes we 
observe and distinguish in any one individual, the more 
agreements we shall discover between it and other in- 
dividuals. 

A third operation of the understanding, by which we 
form abstract conceptions, is the combining' into one 
ivhole a certain number of those attributes of which we 
have formed abstract notions, and giving a name to 
that combination. It is thus we form abstract notions 
of the genera and species of things. These tlnee oper- 
ations we shall consider in order. 

II. General Conceptions formed by Abstraction and 
Generalization.] With regard to abstraction, strictly 
so called, I can perceive nothing in it that is difficult 
either to be understood or practised. What can be 
more easy than to distinguish the different attributes 
which we know to belong to a subject ? In a man, 
for instance, to distinguish his size, his complexion, his 
age, his fortune, his birth, his profession, and twenty 



308 ABSTRACTION. 

other things that belong to him ? To think and speak 
of these things with understanding, is surely within the 
reach of every man endowed with the human faculties. 

There may be distinctions that require nice discern- 
ment, or an acquaintance with the subject that is not 
common. Thus, a critic in painting may discern the 
style of Raphael or Titian, when another man could 
not. A lawyer may be acquainted with many distinc- 
tions in crimes, and contracts, and actions, which never 
occurred to a man who has not studied law. One man 
may excel another in the talent of distinguishing, as he 
may in memory or in reasoning ; but there is a certain 
degree of this talent, without which a man would have 
no title to be considered as a reasonable creature. 

It ought likewise to be observed, that attributes may 
with perfect ease be distinguished and disjoined in our 
conception, which cannot be actually separated in the 
subject. Thus, in a body, I can distinguish its solidity 
from its extension, and its weight from both; in ex- 
tension, I can distinguish length, breadth, and thick- 
ness ; yet none of these can be separated from the body, 
or from one another. One cannot exist without the 
other, but one can be conceived without the Other. 

Having considered abstraction, strictly so called, let 
us next consider the operation at generalizing, which is 
nothing but the observing one or more attributes to be 
common to many subjects. 

If any man can doubt whether there be attributes 
that are really common to many individuals, let him 
consider whether there be not many men that are above 
six feet high, and many below it ; whether there be not 
many men that are rich, and many more that are poor ; 
whether there be not many that were born in Britain, 
and many that were born in France. To multiply in- 
stances of this kind would be to affront the reader's 
understanding. It is certain, therefore, that there are 
innumerable attributes that are really common to many 
individuals ; and if this be what the schoolmen called 
universale a parte rei, we may affirm with certainty, 
that there are such universals. 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 309 

There are some attributes expressed by general words, 
of which this may seem more doubtful. Such are the 
qualities which are inherent in their several subjects. It 
may be said that every subject hath its own qualities, 
and that which is the quality of one subject cannot be 
the quality of another subject. Thus, the whiteness of 
the sheet of paper upon which I write cannot be the 
whiteness of another sheet, though both are called 
white. The weight of one guinea is not the weight 
of another guinea, though both are said to have the 
same weight. 

To this I answer, that the whiteness of this sheet is 
one thing, whiteness is another ; the conceptions signi- 
fied by these two forms of speech are as different as 
the expressions. The first signifies an individual qual- 
ity really existing, and is not a general conception, 
though it be an abstract one; the second signifies a 
general conception, which implies no existence, but may 
be predicated of every thing that is white, and in the 
same sense. On this account, if one should say, that 
the whiteness of this sheet is the whiteness of another 
sheet, every man perceives this to be absurd ; but when 
he says both sheets are white, this is true and perfectly 
understood. The conception of whiteness implies no 
existence ; it would remain the same, though every 
thing in the universe that is white were annihilated. 

It appears, therefore, that the general names of quali- 
ties, as well as of other attributes, are applicable to 
many individuals in the same sense, which could not 
be if there were not general conceptions signified by 
such names. 

The ancient philosophers called these universals or 
predicables, and endeavoured to reduce them to five 
classes ; to wit, genus, species, specific difference, prop- 
erties, and accidents. Perhaps there may be more 
classes of universals or attributes, for enumerations so 
very general are seldom complete ; but every attribute, 
common to several individuals, may be expressed by a 
general term, which is the sign of a general conception. 

How prone men are to form general conceptions we 



310 ABSTRACTION. 

may see from the use of metaphor, and of the other 
figures of speech grounded on similitude. Similitude 
is nothing else than an agreement of the objects com- 
pared in one or more attributes ; and if there be no 
attribute common to both, there can be no similitude. 

The similitudes and analogies between the various 
objects that nature presents to us are infinite and inex- 
haustible. They not only please, when displayed by 
the poet or wit in works of taste, but they are highly 
useful in the ordinary communication of our thoughts 
and sentiments by language. In the rude languages 
of barbarous nations, similitudes and analogies supply 
the want of proper words to express men's sentiments, 
so much, that in such languages there is hardly a sen- 
tence without a metaphor ; and if we examine the most 
copious and polished languages, we shall find that a 
great proportion of the words and phrases which are 
accounted the most proper may be said to be the 
progeny of metaphor. 

As foreigners, who settle in a nation as their home, 
come at last to be incorporated, and lose the denomi- 
nation of foreigners, so words and phrases, at first bor- 
rowed and figurative, by long use become denizens in 
the language, and lose the denomination of figures of 
speech. When we speak of the extent of knowledge, 
the steadiness of virtue, the tenderness of affection, the 
perspicuity of expression, no man conceives these to be 
metaphorical expressions ; they are as proper as any in 
the language. Yet it appears upon the very face of 
them, that they must have been metaphorical in those 
who used them first ; and that it is by use and prescrip- 
tion that they have lost the denomination of figurative, 
and acquired a right to be considered as proper words. 
This observation will be found to extend to a great 
part, perhaps the greater part, of the words of the most 
perfect languages. 

Sometimes the name of an individual is given to a 
general conception, and thereby the individual in a 
manner generalized. As when the Jew, in Shakspeare, 
says, "A Daniel come to judgment; yea, a Daniel!" 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 311 

In this speech, " a Daniel " is an attribute, or a univer- 
sal. The character of Daniel, as a man of singular 
wisdom, is abstracted from his person, and considered 
as capable of being attributed to other persons. 

Upon the whole, these two operations of abstracting 
and generalizing appear common to all men that have 
understanding. The practice of them is, and must be, 
familiar to every man that uses language ; but it is 
one thing to practise them, and another to explain how 
they are performed; as it is one thing to see, another 
to explain how we see. The first is the province of all 
men, and is the natural and easy operation of the fac- 
ulties' which God has given us. The second is the 
province of philosophers, and, though a matter of no 
great difficulty in itself, has been much perplexed by 
the ambiguity of words, and still more by the hypothe- 
ses of philosophers. 

A mistake which is carried through the whole of Mr. 
Locke's Essay may be here mentioned. It is, that our 
simplest ideas or conceptions are got immediately by 
the senses, or by consciousness, and the complex after- 
wards formed by compounding them. I apprehend it 
is far otherwise. Nature presents no object to the 
senses, or to consciousness, that is not complex. Thus, 
by our senses we perceive bodies of various kinds ; but 
every body is a complex body ; it has length, breadth, 
and thickness ; it has figure, and color, and various 
other sensible qualities, which are blended together in 
the same subject; and I apprehend that brute animals, 
who have the same senses that we have, cannot sepa- 
rate the different qualities belonging to the same sub- 
ject, and have only a complex and confused notion of 
the whole.. Such, also, would be our notions of the 
objects of sense, if we had not superior powers of un- 
derstanding, by which we can analyze the complex 
object, abstract every particular attribute from the rest, 
and form a distinct conception of it. So that it is not 
by the senses immediately, but rather by the powers of 
analyzing and abstraction, that we get the most simple 
and the most distinct notions even of the objects of 
sense. 



312 



ABSTRACTION. 



As it is by analyzing a complex object into its sev- 
eral attributes that we acquire our simplest abstract 
conceptions, it may be proper to compare this analysis 
with that which a chemist makes of a compounded boby 
into the ingredients which enter into its composition ; 
for although there be such an analogy between these 
two operations, that we give to both the name of analy- 
sis or resolution, there is at the same time so great a 
dissimilitude in some respects, that we may be led into 
error, by applying to one what belongs to the other. 

It is obvious, that the chemical analysis is an opera- 
tion of the hand upon matter, by various material 
instruments. The analysis we are now explaining is 
purely an operation of the understanding, which re- 
quires no material instrument, and produces no change 
upon any external thing ; we shall therefore call it in- 
tellectual or mental analysis. 

In chemical analysis, the compound body itself is 
the subject analyzed, — a subject so imperfectly known, 
that it may be compounded of various ingredients, 
when to our senses it appears perfectly simple ; and 
even when we are able to analyze it into the different 
ingredients of which it is composed, we know not how 
or why the combination of those ingredients produces 
such a body. 

Thus, pure sea-salt is a body, to appearance, as sim- 
ple as any in nature. Every the least particle of it, 
discernible by our senses, is perfectly similar to every 
other particle in all its qualities. The nicest taste, the 
quickest eye, can discern no mark of its being made up 
of -different ingredients ; yet, by the . chemical art, it 
can be analyzed into an acid and an alkali, and can be 
again produced by the combination of those two ingre- 
dients. But how this combination produces sea-salt, 
no man has been able to discover. The ingredients are 
both as unlike the compound as any bodies we know. 
No man could have guessed, before the thing was 
known, that sea-salt is compounded of those two in- 
gredients ; no man could have guessed, that the union 
of those two ingredients should produce such a com- 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 313 

pound as sea-salt. Such, in many cases, are the phe- 
nomena of the chemical analysis of a compound body. 

If we consider the intellectual analysis of an object, 
it is evident that nothing of this kind can happen ; be- 
cause the thing analyzed is not an external object im- 
perfectly known ; it is a conception of the mind itself. 
And to suppose that there can be any thing in a con- 
ception that is not conceived, is a contradiction. 

The reason of observing the difference between these 
two kinds of analysis is, that some philosophers, in 
order to support their systems, have maintained, that a 
complex idea may have the appearance of the most 
perfect simplicity, and retain no similitude to any of 
the simple ideas of which it is compounded; just as a 
w T hite color may appear perfectly simple, and retain no 
similitude to any of the seven primary colors of which 
it is compounded ; or as a chemical composition may 
appear perfectly simple, and retain no similitude to any 
of the ingredients. 

From which those philosophers have drawn this im- 
portant conclusion, that a cluster of the ideas of sense, 
properly combined, may make the idea of a mind ; and 
that all the ideas which Mr. Locke calls ideas of reflec- 
tion are only compositions of the ideas which ive have 
by our five senses. From this the transition is easy, 
that if a proper composition of the ideas of matter 
may make the idea of a mind, then a proper compo- 
sition of matter itself may make a mind, and that man 
is only a piece of matter curiously formed. 

In this curious system, the whole fabric rests upon 
this foundation, that a complex idea, which is made up 
of various simple ideas, may appear to be perfectly 
simple, and have no marks of composition, because a 
compound body may appear to our senses to be per- 
fectly simple. 

As far as I am able to judge, this, which it is said 
may be, cannot be. That a complex idea should be 
made up of simple ideas, so that, to a ripe understand- 
ing reflecting upon that idea, there should be no ap- 
pearance of composition, nothing similar to the simple 
27 



314 ABSTRACTION. 

ideas of which it is compounded, seems to me to 
involve a contradiction. The idea is a conception of 
the mind. If any thing more than this is meant by 
the idea, I know not what it is ; and I wish both to 
know what it is, and to have proof of its existence. 
Now, that there should be any thing in the conception 
of an object which is not conceived, appears to me as 
manifest a contradiction, as that there should be an 
existence which does not exist, or that a thing should 
be conceived and not conceived at the same time. 

But, say these philosophers, a white color is produced 
by the composition of the primary colors, and yet has 
no resemblance to any of them. I grant it. But what 
can be inferred from this with regard to the composition 
of ideas ? To bring this argument home to the point, 
they must say that, because a white color is com- 
pounded of the primary colors, therefore the idea of a 
white color is compounded of the ideas of the primary 
colors. This reasoning, if it was admitted, would lead 
to innumerable absurdities. An opaque fluid may be 
compounded of two or more pellucid fluids. Hence 
we might infer with equal force, that the idea of an 
opaque fluid may be compounded of the idea of two 
or more pellucid fluids. 

Nature's way of compounding bodies, and our way 
of compounding ideas, are so different in many respects, 
that we cannot reason from the one to the other, unless 
it can be found that ideas are combined by fermenta- 
tions and elective attractions, and may be analyzed in 
a furnace by the force of fire and of menstruums. Until 
this discovery be made, we must hold those to be 
simple ideas, which, upon the most attentive reflection, 
have no appearance of composition ; and those only to 
be the ingredients of complex ideas, which, by atten- 
tive reflection, can be perceived to be contained in 
them. 

III. General Conceptions formed by Combination.] 
As, by an intellectual analysis of objects, we form gen- 
eral conceptions of single attributes (which, of all con- 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 315 

ceptions that enter into the human mind, are the most 
simple), so, by combining several of these into one 
parcel, and giving a narrre to that combination, we 
form general conceptions that may be very complex, 
and at the same time very distinct. 

Thus, one who, by analyzing extended objects, has 
got the simple notions of a point, a line, straight or 
curve, an angle, a surface, a solid, can easily conceive 
a plane surface terminated by four equal straight lines 
meeting in four points at right angles. To this species 
of figure he gives the name of a square. In like man- 
ner, he can conceive a solid terminated by six equal 
squares, and give it the name of a cube. A square, a 
cube, and every name of a mathematical figure, is a 
general term expressing a complex general conception, 
made by a certain combination of the simple elements 
into which we analyze extended bodies. 

Every mathematical figure is accurately defined by 
enumerating the simple elements of which it is formed, 
and the manner of their combination. The definition 
contains the whole essence of it ; and every property 
that belongs to it may be deduced by demonstrative 
reasoning from its definition. It is not a thing that 
exists, for then it would be an individual ; but it is a 
thing that is conceived without regard to existence. 

A farm, a manor, a parish, a county, a kingdom, 
are complex general conceptions, formed by various 
combinations and modifications of inhabited territory, 
under certain forms of government. Different combi- 
nations of military men form the notions of a com- 
pany, a regiment, an army. The several crimes which 
are the objects of criminal law, such as theft, murder, 
robbery, piracy, — what are they but certain combina- 
tions of human actions and intentions, which are accu- 
rately defined in criminal law, and which it is found 
convenient to comprehend under one name and con- 
sider as one thing ? 

When we observe that Nature, in her animal, vege- 
table, and inanimate productions, has formed many in- 
dividuals that agree in many of their qualities and 



316 ABSTRACTION. 

attributes, we are led by natural instinct to expect their 
agreement in other qualities which we have not had oc- 
casion to perceive. 

The physician expects that the rhubarb which has 
never yet been tried will have like medical virtues with 
that which he has prescribed on former occasions. Two 
parcels of rhubarb agree in certain sensible qualities, 
from which agreement they are both called by the same 
general name, rhubarb. Therefore it is expected that 
they will agree in their medical virtues. And as expe- 
rience has discovered certain virtues in one parcel, or in 
many parcels, we presume, without experience, that the 
same virtues belong to all parcels of rhubarb that shall 
be used. 

If a traveller meets a horse, an ox, or a sheep which 
he never saw before, he is under no apprehension, be- 
lieving 'these animals to be of a species that is tame 
and inoffensive. But he dreads a lion or a tiger, be- 
cause they are of a fierce and ravenous species. 

We are capable of receiving innumerable advantages, 
and are exposed to innumerable dangers, from the va- 
rious productions of nature, animal, vegetable, and in- 
animate. The life of man, if a hundred times longer 
than it is, would be insufficient to learn from experience 
the useful and hurtful qualities of every 'individual pro- 
duction of nature, taken singly. 

We have, therefore, a strong and rational inducement 
both to distribute natural substances into classes, genera 
and species, under general names, and to do this with 
all the accuracy and distinctness we are able. For the 
more accurate our divisions are made, and the more 
distinctly the several species are defined, the more 
securely we may rely that the qualities we find in one 
or in a few individuals will be found in all of the same 
species. 

It may likewise be observed, that the combinations 
that have names are nearly, though not perfectly, the 
same in the different languages of civilized nations that 
have intercourse with one another. Hence it is that 
the lexicographer, for the most part, can give words in 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 317 

one language answering perfectly, or very nearly, to 
those of another ; and what is written in a simple style 
in one language can be translated, almost word for 
word, into another.* From this we may conclude that 
there are either certain common principles of human 
nature, or certain common occurrences of human life, 
which dispose men, out of an infinite number that 
might be formed, to form certain combinations rather 
than others. 

In the rudest state of society, men must have occa- 
sion to form the general notions of man, woman, father, 
mother, son, daughter, sister, brother, neighbour, friend, 
enemy, and many others, to express the. common rela- 
tions of one person to another. 

If they are employed in hunting, they must have 
general terms to express the various implements and 
operations of the chase. Their houses and clothing, 
however simple, will furnish another set of general 
terms, to express the materials, the workmanship, and 
the excellences and defects of those fabrics. If they 
sail upon rivers or upon the sea, this will give occasion 
to a great number of general terms, which otherwise 
would never have occurred to their thoughts. 

The same thing may be said of agriculture, of pas- 
turage, of every art they practise, and of every branch 
of knowledge they attain. The necessity of general 
terms for communicating our sentiments is obvious, and 
the invention of them, as far as we find them necessary, 
requires no other talent than that degree of understand- 
ing which is common to men. 

New inventions of general use give an easy birth to 
new complex notions and new names, which spread as. 
far as the invention does. How many new complex 
notions have been formed, and names for them invented 
in the languages of Europe, by the modern inventions 
of printing, of gunpowder, of the mariner's compass, of 
optical glasses ! The simple ideas combined in those 
complex notions, and the associating qualities of those 

* This is only strictly true of the words relative to objects of sense. — H. 

27* 



318 



ABSTRACTION. 



ideas, are very ancient, but they never produced those 
complex notions until there was use for them. 

What is peculiar to a nation in its customs, manners, 
or laws, will give occasion to complex notions and 
words peculiar to the language of that nation. Hence 
it is easy to see why impeachment and attainder in the 
English language, and ostracism in the Greek language, 
have not names answering to them in other languages. 

I apprehend, therefore, that it is utility, and not, as 
some have thought, the associating qualities of the ideas, 
that has led men to form only certain combinations, 
and to give names to them in language, while they 
neglect an infinite number that might be formed. 

There remains a very large class of complex general 
terms, on which I shall make some observations ; I 
mean those by which we name the genera and species 
of natural substances. 

It is utility, indeed, that leads us to give general 
names to the various species of natural substances ; but, 
in combining the attributes which are included under 
the specific name, we are more aided and directed by 
nature, than in forming other combinations of mixed 
modes and relations. In the last, the ingredients are 
brought together in the occurrences of life, or in the ac- 
tions or thoughts of men. But in the first, the ingre- 
dients are united by nature in many individual sub- 
stances which God has made. We form a general no- 
tion of those attributes wherein many individuals agree. 
We give a specific name to this combination, which 
name is common to all substances having those attri- 
butes, which either do or may exist. The specific name 
comprehends neither more nor fewer attributes than tve 
find proper to put into its definition. It comprehends 
not time, nor place, nor even existence, although there 
can be no individual without these. 

This work of the understanding is absolutely neces- 
sary for speaking intelligibly of the productions of na- 
ture, and for reaping the benefits we receive, and avoid- 
ing the dangers we are exposed to, from them. The 
individuals are so many, that to give a proper name to 



GENERAL CONCEPTIONS. 319 

each would be beyond the power of language. If a 
good or bad quality were observed in an individual, of 
how small use would this be if there were not a species 
in which the same quality might be expected ? 

Without some general knowledge of the qualities of 
natural substances, human life could not be preserved. 
And there can be no general knowledge of this kind 
without reducing them to species under specific names. 
For this reason, among the rudest nations, we find 
names for fire, water, earth, air, mountains, fountains, 
rivers ; for the kinds of vegetables they use ; of animals 
they hunt or tame, or that are found useful or hurtful. 
Each of those names signifies in general a substance 
having a certain combination of attributes. The name, 
therefore, must be common to all substances in which 
those attributes are found. 

Such general names of substances being found in all 
vulgar languages, before philosophers began to make 
accurate divisions and less obvious distinctions, it is 
not to be expected that their meaning should be 
more precise than is necessary for the common pur- 
poses of life. 

As the knowledge of nature advances, more species 
of natural substances are observed, and their useful 
qualities discovered. In order that this important part 
of human knowledge may be communicated, and hand- 
ed down to future generations, it is not sufficient 
that the species have names. Such is the fluctuating 
state of language, that a general name will not always 
retain the same precise signification, unless it have a 
definition in which men are disposed to acquiesce. 

There was undoubtedly a great fund of natural 
knowledge among the Greeks and Romans in the time 
of Pliny. There is a great fund in his Natural History ; 
but much of it is lost to us, for this reason, among 
others, that we know not what species of substance he 
means by such a name. Nothing could have prevented 
this loss but an accurate definition of the name, by 
which the species might have been distinguished from 
all others, as long as that name and its definition re- 



320 ABSTRACTION. 

mained. To prevent such loss in future times, mod- 
ern philosophers have very laudably attempted to give 
names and accurate definitions of all the known species 
of substances wherewith the bountiful Creator has en- 
riched our globe. 

Nature invites to this work, by having formed things 
so as to make it both easy and important. ~For, first, 
we perceive numbers of individual substances so like 
in their obvious qualities that the most unimproved 
tribes of men consider them as of one species, and give 
them one common name. Secondly, the more latent 
qualities of substances are generally the same in all the 
individuals of a species ; so that what, by observation 
or experiment, is found in a few individuals of a spe- 
cies, is presumed and commonly found to belong to the 
whole. By this we are enabled, from particular facts, 
to draw general conclusions. This kind of induction is 
indeed the master key to the knowledge of nature, with- 
out which we could form no general conclusions in that 
branch of philosophy. And, thirdly, by the very consti- 
tution of our nature, we are led, without reasoning, to 
ascribe to the whole species what we have found to be- 
long to the individuals. It is thus we come to know 
that fire burns and water drowns, that bodies gravitate 
and bread nourishes. 

The species of two of the kingdoms of nature — to 
wit, the animal and the vegetable — seem to be fixed by 
nature, by the power they have of producing their like. 
And in these, men in all ages and nations have ac- 
counted the parent and the progeny of the same species. 
The differences among naturalists • with regard to the 
species of these two kingdoms are very inconsiderable, 
and may be occasioned by the changes produced by 
soil, climate, and culture, and sometimes by monstrous 
productions, which are comparatively rare. 

In the inanimate kingdom we have not the same 
means of dividing things into species, and therefore 
the limits of species seem to be more arbitrary ; but, 
from the progress already made, there is ground to 
hope, that, even in this kingdom, as the knowledge of 



REALISTS, NOMINALISTS, AND CONCEPTUALISTS. 321 

it advances, the various species may be so well distin- 
guished and defined as to answer every valuable pur- 
pose. 



CHAPTER III. 

OPINIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT UNIVERSALS. 

I. Opinions of the Ancients on the Subject.] In the 
ancient philosophy, the doctrine of universals, that is, 
of things which we express by general terms, makes a 
great figure. The ideas of the Pythagoreans and Pla- 
tonists were universals. All science is employed about 
universals as its object. It was thought that there can 
be no science unless its object be something real and 
immutable, and therefore those who paid homage to 
truth and science maintained that ideas or universals 
have a real and immutable existence. 

To these ideas they ascribed the most magnificent 
attributes. Of man, of a rose, of a circle, and of every 
species of things, they believed that there is one idea or 
form which existed from eternity, before any individual 
of the species was formed ; that this idea is the exem- 
plar or pattern according to which the Deity formed 
the individuals of the species ; that every individual of 
the species participates of this idea, which constitutes 
its essence ; and that this idea is likewise an object of 
the human intellect, when, by due abstraction, we dis- 
cern it to be one in all the individuals of the species. 

Thus the idea of every species, though one and im- 
mutable, might be considered in three different views or 
respects ; first, as having an external existence before 
there was any individual of the species ; secondly, as 
existing in every individual of that species, without 
division or multiplication, and making the essence of 
the species ; and, thirdly, as an object of intellect and 
of science in man. 



322 ABSTRACTION. 

Such I take to be the doctrine of Plato, as far as I 
am able to comprehend it. His disciple, Aristotle, re- 
jected the first of these views of ideas as visionary, but 
differed little from his master with regard to the last 
two. He did not admit the existence of universal na- 
tures antecedent to the existence of individuals ; but 
he held that every individual consists of matter and 
form; that the form (which I take to be what Plato 
calls the idea) is common to all the individuals of the 
species, and that the human intellect is fitted to receive 
the forms of things as objects of contemplation.* Such 
profound speculations about the nature of universals 
we find even in the first ages of philosophy. I wish I 
could make them more intelligible to myself and to the 
reader. 

II. Rise of Nominalism and Conceptualism, and their 
Modern Defenders.] Near the beginning of the twelfth 
century, Roscelin, the master of the famous Abelard, 
introduced a new doctrine, — that there is nothing uni- 
versal but tvords or names. For this and other heresies 
he was much persecuted. However, by his eloquence 
and abilities, and those of his disciple, Abelard, the 
doctrine spread, and those who followed it were called 
Nominalists.^ His antagonists, who held that there are 

* Different philosophers have maintained that Aristotle was a Realist, a 
Conceptualist, and a Nominalist, in the strictest sense. — H. 

" Now I venture to think that the interminable contest between Platonist 
and Aristotelian, Realist and Nominalist, is, at bottom, not so much a 
question of what universals are, as of how they shall be treated ; not so 
much a question of metaphysics as of method. Upon the nature of gen- 
eral notions there is a large amount of agreement between the parties : 
the Realist believes, with the Nominalist, that they are in the human mind, 
whilst, if the Nominalist believes at all that the world was created by design, 
he can scarcely escape from recognizing the Realist position, that such 
ideas as animal, right, motion, must have had their existence from the be- 
ginning in the creative mind. Aristotle might have owned that the uni- 
versal notions in his mind answer to certain ideas in the Divine, whilst 
his illustrious master might have confessed that, putting revelation out 
of the question, there is no way to the absolute, — to knowledge of the 
ideas, — except a careful observation of, and reasoning from, the facts 
before our eyes." — Thomson's Laws of Thought, 2d ed., p. 114 et seq. 
Compare Ravaisson, Mitaphysique d'Aristote. — Ed. 

t Abelard was not a Nominalist, like Roscelin ; but held a doctrine inter- 



REALISTS, NOMINALISTS, AND CONCEPTUALISTS. 323 

things that are really universal, were called Realists. 
The scholastic philosophers, from this time, were divided 
into these two sects. Some few took a middle road 
between the contending parties. That universality, 
which the Realists held to be in things themselves, 
Nominalists in names only, they held to be neither in 
things nor in names only, but in our conceptions. On 
this account they were called Conceptualists ; but, being 
exposed to the batteries of both the opposite parties, 
they made no great figure.* 

When the sect of Nominalists was like to expire, it 
received new life and spirit from Occam, the disciple of 
Scotus, in the fourteenth century. Then the dispute 
about universals, a parte rei, was revived with the 
greatest animosity in the schools of Britain, France, 
and Germany, and carried on, not by arguments only, 
but by bitter reproaches, blows, and bloody affrays, 
until the doctrines of Luther and the other Reformers 
turned the attention of the learned world to more im- 
portant subjects. 

After the revival of learning, Mr. Hobbes adopted the 
opinion of the Nominalists.f Human Nature, Chap. 
V. Sect. 6 : — " It is plain, therefore," says he, " that 
there is nothing universal but names." And in his 
Leviathan, Part I. Chap. IV., — " There being nothing 
universal but names, proper names bring to mind one 
. thing only ; universals recall any one of many." 

Mr. Locke, according to the division before men- 
tioned, I think, may be accounted a Conceptualist. 
He does not maintain that there are things that are 
universal ; but that we have general or universal ideas 
which we form by abstraction ; and this power of form- 
ing abstract and general ideas he conceives to be that 

mediate between absolute Nominalism and Realism, corresponding to the 
opinion since called Conccptualism. A flood of light has been thrown 
upon Abelard's doctrines by M. Cousin's introduction to his recent publi- 
cation of the unedited works of that illustrious thinker. — H. 

* The later Nominalists of the school of Occam were really Concept- 
ualists, in our sense of the term. — H. 

t Hobbes is justly said by Leibnitz to have been ipsis Nominalibus norni- 
nalior. They were really Conceptualists. — H. 



324 ABSTRACTION. 

which makes the chief distinction in point of under- 
standing between men and brutes. 

Mr. Locke's doctrine about abstraction has been com- 
bated by two very powerful antagonists, — Bishop 
Berkeley and Mr. Hume, — who have taken up the 
opinion of the Nominalists. The former thinks (Intro- 
duction to his . Principles of Human Knowledge), " that 
the opinion, that the mind has a power of forming ab- 
stract ideas, or notions of things, has had a chief part 
in rendering speculation intricate and perplexed, and 
has occasioned innumerable errors and difficulties in 
almost all parts of knowledge." To the same effect 
Mr. Hume, Treatise of Human Nature, Book I. Part I. 
Sect. 7 : — "A very material question has been started 
concerning abstract or general ideas, whether they be 
general or particular in the mind's conception of them ? 
A great philosopher [he means Dr. Berkeley] has dis- 
puted the received opinion in this particular, and has 
asserted that all general ideas are nothing but par- 
ticular ones annexed to a certain term, which gives 
them a more extensive signification, and makes them 
recall, upon occasion, other individuals which are sim- 
ilar to them. As I look upon this to be one of the 
greatest and most valuable discoveries that have been 
made of late years in the republic of letters, I shall 
here endeavour to confirm it by some arguments, which 
I hope will put it beyond all doubt and controversy." 

I shall make an end of this subject with some reflec- 
tions on what has been said upon it by these two emi- 
nent philosophers. 

1. A triangle, in general, or any other universal, 
might be called an idea by a Platonist; but, in the 
style of modern philosophy, it is not an idea, nor do 
we ever ascribe to ideas the properties of triangles. It 
is never said of any idea, that it has three sides and 
three angles. We do not speak of equilateral, isosceles, 
or scalene ideas, nor of right-angled, acute-angled, or 
obtuse-angled ideas. And if these attributes do not 
belong to ideas, it follows necessarily that a triangle 
is not an idea. The same reasoning may be applied 
to every other universal. 



REALISTS, NOMINALISTS, AND CONCEPTUALISTS. 325 

Ideas are said to have a real existence in the mind, 
at least while we think of them ; but universals have 
no real existence. When we ascribe existence to them, 
it is not an existence in time or place, but existence 
in some individual subject ; and this existence means 
no more than that they are truly attributes of such a 
subject. Their existence is nothing but predicability, 
or the capacity of being attributed to a subject. The 
name of predicabtes, which was given them in ancient 
philosophy, is that which most properly expresses their 
nature* 

2. I think it must also be granted that universals 
cannot be the objects of imagination, when we take 
that word in its strict and proper sense. " I find," says 
Berkeley, u I have a faculty of imagining or represent- 
ing to myself the ideas of those particular things I 
have perceived, and of variously compounding and 
dividing them. I can imagine a man with two heads, 
or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of a 
horse. I can imagine the hand, the eye, the nose, each 
by itself, abstracted or separated from the rest of the 
body. But then, whatever hand or eye I imagine, it 

* Here M. Cousin makes a distinction ' and an exception : — " Let us 
consult the human mind and the truth of internal facts. It is an unques- 
tionable fact, that, when you speak of book in general, you do not connect 
with the idea of book that of real existence. On the contrary, I ask if, 
when you speak of space in general, you do not add to this idea a belief in 
the reality of space? I ask if it is with space as with book ; if you be- 
lieve, for instance, that there are, without you, nothing- but particular 
spaces, — that there is not a universal space, capable of embracing all 
possible bodies, a space one and the same with itself, of which different 
particular spaces are nothing but arbitrary portions and measures ? It is 
certain that, when you speak of space, you have the conviction that out of 
yourself there is something which is space ; and also, when you speak of 
time, you have the conviction that there is out of yourself something which 
is time, although you know neither the nature of time nor space. Differ- 
ent times and different spaces are not the constituent elements of space 
and time ; time and space are not solely for you the collection of different 
times and different spaces. But you believe that time and space are in 
themselves ; that it is not two or three spaces, two or three ages, which 
constitute space and time : for every thing derived from experience, whether 
in respect to space or time, is finite, and the characteristic of space and of 
time for you is to be infinite, without beginning and without end. Time 
resolves itself into eternity, and space into immensity." — Elements of 
Psychology, Chap. V. — Ed. 

28 



326 



ABSTRACTION. 



must have some particular shape or color. Likewise, 
the idea of a man that I frame to myself must be 
either of a white, or a black, or a tawny, a straight or 
a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man." 

I believe every man will find in himself what this 
ingenious author found, — that he cannot imagine a 
man without color, or stature, or shape. Imagination, 
as we before observed, properly signifies a conception 
of the appearance an object would make to the eye if 
actually seen. A universal is not an object of any 
external sense, and therefore cannot be imagined; but 
it may be distinctly conceived. When Mr. Pope says, 

" The proper study of mankind is man" 

I conceive his meaning distinctly, though I neither im- 
agine a black or a white, a crooked or a straight man. 
The distinction between conception and imagination 
is real, though it be too often overlooked, and the words 
taken to be synonymous. I can conceive a thing that 
is impossible, but I cannot distinctly imagine a thing 
that is impossible. I can conceive a proposition or a 
demonstration, but I cannot imagine either. I can con- 
ceive understanding and will, virtue and vice, and other 
attributes of mind, but I cannot imagine them. In 
like manner, I can distinctly conceive universals, but I 
cannot imagine them. 

3. Berkeley, in his reasoning against abstract gen- 
eral ideas, seems unwillingly or unwarily to grant all 
that is necessary to support abstract and general con- 
ceptions. " A man," he says, " may consider a figure 
merely as triangular, without attending to the particu- 
lar qualities of the angles or relations of the sides. So 
far he may abstract. But this will never prove that he 
can frame an abstract general inconsistent idea of a 
triangle." 

If a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, 
he must have some conception of this object of his 
consideration ; for no man can consider a thing which 
he does not conceive. He has a conception, therefore, 
of a triangular figure, merely as such. I know no more 



REALISTS, NOMINALISTS, AND CONCEPTUALISTS. 327 

that is meant by an abstract general conception of a 
triangle. 

He that considers a figure merely as triangular must 
understand what is meant by the word triangular. If 
to the conception he joins to this word he adds any 
particular quality of angles or relation of sides, he mis- 
understands it, and does not consider the figure merely 
as triangular. Whence I think it is evident, that he 
who considers a figure merely as triangular must have 
the conception of a triangle, abstracted from any qual- 
ity of angles or relation of sides. 

4. Let us next consider the Bishop's notion of gener- 
alizing. He does not absolutely deny that there are 
general ideas, but only that there are abstract general 
ideas. " An idea," he sayS, " which, considered in it- 
self, is particular, becomes general by being made to 
represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the 
same sort. To make this plain by an example, suppose 
a geometrician is demonstrating the method of cutting 
a line in two equal parts. He draws, for instance, a 
black line of an inch in length. This, "which is in 
itself a particular line, is nevertheless, with regard to its 
signification, general ; since, as it is there used, it rep- 
resents all particular lines whatsoever ; so that what is 
demonstrated of it is demonstrated of all lines, or, in 
other words, of a line in general. And as that particu- 
lar line becomes general by being made a sign, so the 
name line, which, taken absolutely, is particular, by 
being a sign is made general." 

Here I observe, that when a particular idea is made 
a sign to represent and stand for all of a sort, this sup- 
poses a distinction of things into sorts or species. To 
be of a sort, implies having those attributes which 
characterize the sort and are common to all the individ- 
uals that belong to it. There cannot, therefore, be a 
sort without general attributes, nor can there be any 
conception of a sort without a conception of those gen- 
eral attributes which distinguish it. The conception of 
a sort, therefore, is an abstract general conception. The 
particular idea cannot surely be made a sign of a thing 



328 ABSTRACTION. 

of which we have no conception. I do not say that 
you must have an idea of the sort, but surely you 
ought to understand or conceive what it means, when 
you make a particular idea a representative of it, other- 
wise your particular idea represents you know not 
what. 

When I demonstrate any general property of a tri- 
angle, — such as that the three angles are equal to two 
right-angles, — I must understand or conceive distinctly 
what is common to all triangles. I must distinguish the 
common attributes of all triangles from those wherein 
particular triangles may differ. And if I conceive dis- 
tinctly what is common to all triangles, without con- 
founding it with what is not so, this is to form a gen- 
eral conception of a triangle. And without this, it is 
impossible to know that the demonstration extends to 
all triangles. 

The Bishop takes particular notice of this argument, 
and makes this answer to it : — " Though the idea I 
have in view, whilst I make the demonstration, be, 
for instance, that of an isosceles rectangular triangle, 
whose sides are of a determinate length, I may never- 
theless be certain that it extends to all other rectilinear 
triangles, of what sort or bigness soever ; and that be- 
cause neither the right angle, nor the equality or deter- 
minate length of the sides, is at all concerned in the 
demonstration." 

But if he do not, in the idea he has in view, clearly 
distinguish what is common to all triangles from what 
is not, it would be impossible to discern whether some- 
thing that is not common be concerned in the demon- 
stration or not. In order, therefore, to perceive that 
the demonstration extends to all triangles, it is neces- 
sary to have a distinct conception of what is common to 
all triangles, excluding from that conception all that is 
not common. And this is all I understand by an ab- 
stract general conception of a triangle. 

5. Having considered the opinions of Bishop Berke- 
ley on this subject, let us next attend to those of Mr. 
Hume, as they are expressed, Part I. Sect. 7, Treatise 



REALISTS, NOMINALISTS, AND CONCEPTUALISTS. 329 

of Human Nature. Quantity or quality, according to 
him, is inconceivable, without a precise notion of its 
degree ; and on this ground, that it is impossible to dis- 
tinguish things that are not actually separable. " The 
precise length of a line is not different or distinguishable 
from the line." 

I have before endeavoured to show that things in- 
separable in their nature may be distinguished in our 
conception. And we need go no farther to be con- 
vinced of this than the instance here brought to prove 
the contrary. The precise length of a line, he says, is 
not distinguishable from the line. When I say, This is 
a line, I say and mean one thing. When I say, It is a 
line of three inches, I say and mean another thing. If 
this be not to distinguish the precise length of the line 
from the line, I know not what it is to distinguish. 

6. Mr. Hume endeavours to explain how it is that an 
individual idea, annexed to a general term, may serve 
all the purposes in reasoning which have been ascribed 
to abstract general ideas : — " When we have found a 
resemblance among several objects that often occur to 
us, we apply the same name to all of them, whatever 
differences we may observe in the degrees of their 
quantity and quality, and whatever other differences 
may appear among them. After we have acquired a 
custom of this kind, the hearing of that name revives 
the idea of one of these objects, and makes the imagi- 
nation conceive it, with all its circumstances and pro- 
portions." 

He allows that we find a resemblance among several 
objects, and such a resemblance as leads us to apply 
the same name to all of thern. This concession is 
sufficient to show that we have general conceptions. 
There can be no resemblance in objects that have no 
common attribute ; and if there be attributes belonging 
in common to several objects, and in man a faculty to 
observe and conceive these and to give names to them, 
this is to have general conceptions. 

7. The author says, — " It is certain that we form the 
idea of individuals whenever we use any general term. 

28* 



330 



ABSTRACTION. 



The word raises up an individual idea, and makes the 
imagination conceive it, with all its particular circum- 
stances and proportions." 

This fact he takes a great deal of pains to account 
for from the effect of custom. But the fact should be 
ascertained before we take pains to account for it. I 
can see no reason to believe the fact ; and I think a 
farmer can talk of his sheep and his black cattle with- 
out conceiving in his imagination one individual, with 
all its circumstances and proportions. If this be true, 
the whole of his theory of general ideas falls to the 
ground. To me it appears that, when a general term 
is well understood, it is only by accident if it suggest 
some individual of the kind ; but this effect is by no 
means constant. 

I perfectly understand what mathematicians call a 
line of the fifth order ; yet I never conceived in my 
imagination any one of the kind, in all its circumstances 
and proportions. Sir Isaac Newton first formed a dis- 
tinct general conception of lines of the third order ; and 
afterwards, by great labor and deep penetration, found 
out and described the particular species comprehended 
under that general term. According to Mr. Hume's 
theory, he must first have been acquainted with the 
particulars, and then have learned by custom to apply 
one general name to all of them.* 



* The whole controversy of Nominalism and Conceptualism is founded 
on the ambiguity of the terms employed. The opposite parties are sub- 
stantially at one. Had our British philosophers been aware of the Leib- 
nitzian distinction of intuitive and symbolical knowledge, and had we, like 
the Germans, different terms, like Begriff and Amchauung, to denote differ- 
ent kinds of thought, there would have been as little difference of opinion 
in regard to the nature of general notions in this country as in the Em- 
pire. With us, idea, notion, conception, &c., are confounded, or applied by 
different philosophers in different senses. 

I must put the reader on his guard against Dr. Thomas Brown's specu- 
lations on this subject. His own doctrine of universals, in so far as it is 
peculiar, is self-contradictory ; and nothing can be more erroneous than 
his statement of the doctrine held by others, especially by the Nominalists. 
— H. 

For a full account of this famous controversy, see the general historians 
of philosophy, particularly Brucker and Tennemann. Also, Rousselot, 
Etudes sur la Philosophie dans le Moyen-Ag?, Tome I. p. 126 et seq.; Remu- 



ESSAY VI. 

OF JUDGMENT 



CHAPTER I. 

OF JUDGMENT IN GENERAL. 

I. Definition of the Term.] The definition commonly 
given of judgment, by the more ancient writers in logic, 
was, that it is an act of the mind, whereby one thing is 
affirmed or denied of another. I believe this is as good 
a definition of it as can be given. Why I prefer it to 
some later definitions will afterwards appear. With- 
out pretending to give any other, I shall make two re- 
marks upon it, and then offer some general observations 
on this subject. 

It is true, that it is by affirmation or denial that we 
express our judgments ; but there may be judgment 
which is not expressed. It is a solitary act of the 
mind, and the expression of it by affirmation or denial 
is not at all essential to it. It may be tacit, and not 
expressed. Nay, it is well known that men may judge 
contrary to what they affirm or deny ; the definition, 
therefore, must be understood of mental affirmation or 



sat, Abelard, Tome I. p. 313 et seq., and Tome II. p. 1 et seq. ; and, above 
all, the brilliant Preface by Cousin to his Ouvrages inedits <P Abelard, refer- 
red to in a former note. Of English works, besides those already men- 
tioned, the following are proper to be consulted : — Stewart's Elements, 
Part I. Chap. IV. ; R". E. Scott's Intellectual Philosophy, Chap. IV. Sect. 
2 ; Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lect. XL VI., XL VII. ; Haz- 
litt's Essays on the Principles of Human Action, on the Systems of Hartley 
and Helvetius, and on Abstract Ideas ; and Hampden's Scholastic Philosophy 
considered in Relation to Christian Theology, Lecture II., and Notes. — Ed. 



332 JUDGMENT. 

denial, which indeed is only another name for judg- 
ment. 

Affirmation or denial is very often the expression 
of testimony, which is a different act of the mind, and 
ought to be distinguished from judgment. A judge 
asks of a witness what he knows of such a matter to 
which he was an eye or ear witness. He answers by 
affirming or denying something. But his answer does 
not express his judgment ; it is his testimony. Again, 
I ask a man his opinion in a matter of science or of 
criticism. His answer is not testimony ; it is the ex- 
pression of his judgment. Testimony is a social act, 
and it is essential to it to be expressed by words or signs. 
A tacit testimony is a _ contradiction : but there is no 
contradiction in a tacit judgment; it is complete with- 
out being expressed. In testimony, a man pledges his 
veracity for what he affirms ; so that a false testimony 
is a lie : but a wrong judgment is not a lie ; it is only 
an error. 

I believe, in all languages, testimony and judgment 
are expressed by the same form of speech. A propo- 
sition affirmative or negative, with a verb in what is 
called the indicative mood, expresses both. To distin- 
guish them by the form of speech, it would be neces- 
sary that verbs should have two indicative moods, one 
for testimony, and another to express judgment. 1 
know not that this is found in any language. And the 
reason is, not surely that the vulgar cannot distinguish 
the two (for every man knows the difference between a 
lie and an error of judgment), but that, from the matter 
and circumstances, we can easily see whether a man 
intends to give his testimony, or barely to express his 
judgment. 

Although men must have judged in many cases be- 
fore tribunals of justice were erected, yet it is very 
probable that there were tribunals before men began to 
speculate about judgment, and that the word may be 
borrowed from the practice of tribunals. As a judge, 
after taking the proper evidence, passes sentence in a 
cause, and that sentence is called his judgment, so the 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 333 

mind, with regard to whatever is true or false, passes 
sentence, or determines according to the evidence that 
appears. Some kinds of evidence leave no room for 
doubt. Sentence is passed immediately, without seek- 
ing or hearing any contrary evidence, because the thing 
is certain and notorious. In other cases, there is room 
for weighing evidence on both sides before sentence is 
passed. The analogy between a tribunal of justice 
and this inward tribunal of the mind is too obvious to 
escape the notice of any man who ever appeared before 
a judge. And it is probable that the word judgment, 
as well as many other words we use in speaking of this 
operation of mind, is grounded on this analogy. 

II. Observations respecting the Nature and Province 
of Judgment.} Having premised these things, that it 
may be clearly understood what I mean by judgment, 
I proceed to make some general observations concern- 
ing it. 

First, judgment is an act of the mind specifically 
different from simple apprehension, or the bare concep- 
tion of a thing. It would be unnecessary to observe 
this, if some philosophers had not been led by their 
theories to a contrary opinion. Although there can be 
no judgment without a conception of the things about 
which we judge, yet conception may be without any 
judgment.* Judgment can be expressed by a proposi- 
tion only, and a proposition is a complete sentence ; 
but simple apprehension may be expressed by a word 
or words which make no complete sentence. When 
simple apprehension is employed about a proposition, 
every man knows that it is one thing to apprehend a 
proposition, that is, to conceive what it means ; but it 
is quite another thing to judge it to be true or false. 

* There is no conception possible without a judgment affirming its (ideal) 
existence, its subjective reality, — an existential judgment. Apprehension 
is as impossible without judgment, as judgment is impossible without ap- 
prehension. The apprehension of a thing, or notion, is only realized in 
the mental affirmation that the concept ideally exists, and this affirmation is 
a judgment. In fact, all consciousness supposes a judgment, as all con- 
sciousness supposes a discrimination. — H. 



334 



JUDGMENT. 



Secondly, there are notions or ideas that ought to be 
referred to the faculty of judgment as their source ; be- 
cause, if we had not that faculty, they could not enter 
into our minds ; and to those that have that faculty, 
and are capable of reflecting upon its operations, they 
are obvious and familiar. 

Among these we may reckon the notion of judgment 
itself; the notions of a proposition, of its subject, pred- 
icate, and copula ; of affirmation and negation, of true 
and false, of knowledge, belief, disbelief, opinion, assent, 
evidence. From no source could we acquire these no- 
tions, but from reflecting upon our judgments. Rela- 
tions of things make one great class of our notions or 
ideas ; and we cannot have the idea of any relation 
without some exercise of judgment, as will appear after- 
wards. 

Thirdly, in persons come to years of understanding, 
judgment necessarily accompanies all sensation, percep- 
tion by the senses, consciousness, and memory. 

I restrict this to persons come to the years of under- 
standing, because it may be a question, whether infants, 
in the first period of life, have any judgment or belief 
at all. The same question may be put with regard to 
brutes and some idiots. This ^question is foreign to the 
present subject ; and I say nothing here about it, but 
speak only of persons who have the exercise of judg- 
ment. In them it is evident, that a man who feels pain 
judges and believes that he is really pained. The man 
who perceives an object believes that it exists, and is 
what he distinctly perceives it to be ; nor is it in his 
power to avoid such judgment. And the like may be 
said of memory and of consciousness. 

Whether judgment ought to be called a necessary 
concomitant of these operations, or rather a part or in- 
gredient of them, I do not dispute ; but it is certain, 
that all of them are accompanied with a determination 
that something is true or false, and a consequent belief. 
If this determination be not judgment, it is an opera- 
tion that has got no name ; for it is not simple appre- 
hension, neither is it reasoning ; it is a mental affirma- 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 335 

tion or negation ; it may be expressed by a proposition 
affirmative or negative, and it is accompanied with the 
firmest belief. These are the characteristics of judg- 
ment ; and I must call it judgment, till I can find 
another name for it. 

The judgments'we form are either of things necessary, 
or of things contingent. 

That three times three are nine, that the whole is 
greater than a part, are judgments about things neces- 
sary. Our assent to such necessary propositions is not 
grounded upon any operation of sense, of memory, or 
of consciousness, nor does it require their concurrence ; 
it is unaccompanied by any other operation than that 
of conception, which must accompany all judgment ; 
we may therefore call this judgment of things neces- 
sary, pure judgment. 

Our judgment of things contingent must always rest 
upon some other operation of the mind, such as sense, 
or memory, or consciousness, or credit in testimony, 
which is itself grounded upon sense. That I now write 
upon a table covered with green cloth, is a contingent 
event, which I judge to be most undoubtedly true. My 
judgment is grounded upon my perception, and is a 
necessary concomitant or ingredient of my perception. 
That I dined with such a company yesterday, I judge 
to be true, because I remember it ; and my judgment 
necessarily goes along with this remembrance, or makes 
a part of it. 

There are many forms of speech in common lan- 
guage which show that the senses, memory, and con- 
sciousness are considered as judging faculties. We 
say that a man judges of colors by his eye, of sounds 
by his ear. We speak of the evidence of sense, the 
evidence of memory, the evidence of consciousness. 
But evidence is the ground of judgment, and when we 
see evidence, it is impossible not to judge. 

When we speak of seeing or remembering any thing, 
we indeed hardly ever add, that we judge it to be true. 
But the reason of this appears to be, that such addition 
would be mere superfluity of speech, because every one 



336 JUDGMENT. 

knows that what I see or remember I must judge to be 
true, and cannot do otherwise. And for the same rea- 
son, in speaking of any thing that is self-evident or 
strictly demonstrated, we do not say that we judge it 
to be true. This would be superfluity of speech, be- 
cause every man knows that we must judge that to be 
true which we hold self-evident or demonstrated. 

There is therefore good reason why, in speaking or 
writing, judgment should not be expressly mentioned, 
when all men know it to be necessarily implied ; that 
is, when there can be no doubt. In such cases, we 
barely mention the evidence. But when the evidence 
mentioned leaves room for doubt, then, without any 
superfluity or tautology, we say we judge the thing to 
be so, because this is not implied in what was said be- 
fore. A woman with child never says, that, going such 
a journey, she carried her child along with her. We 
know that, while it is in her womb, she must carry it 
along with her. There are some operations of mind 
that may be said to carry judgment in their womb, and 
can no more leave it behind them than the pregnant 
woman can leave her child. Therefore, in speaking of 
such operations, it is not expressed. 

Our judgments of this kind are purely the gift of na- 
ture, nor do they admit of improvement by culture. 
The memory of one man may be more tenacious 
than that of another ; but both rely with equal assur- 
ance upon what they distinctly remember. One man's 
sight may be more acute, or his feeling more delicate, 
than that of another ; but both give equal credit to the 
distinct testimony of their sight and touch. And as we 
have this belief by the constitution of our nature, with- 
out any effort of our own, so no effort of ours, can over- 
turn it. The skeptic may perhaps persuade himself, in 
general, that he has no ground to believe his senses or 
his memory ; but in particular cases that are interest- 
ing, his disbelief vanishes, and he finds himself under a 
necessity of believing both. 

These judgments may, in the strictest sense, be called 
judgments of nature. Nature has subjected us to them 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 337 

whether we will or not. They are neither got, nor can 
they be lost, by any use or abuse of our faculties ; and 
it is evidently necessary to our preservation that it 
should be so. For if belief in our senses and in our 
memory were to be learned by culture, the race of men 
would perish before they learned this lesson. It is 
necessary to all men for their being and preservation, 
and therefore is unconditionally given to all men by the 
Author of nature. 

A fourth observation is, that some exercise of judg- 
ment is necessary in the formation of all abstract and 
general conceptions, whether more simple or more com- 
plex, — in dividing, in defining, and, in general, inform- 
ing all clear and distinct conceptions of things, which are 
the only fit materials of reasoning. 

These operations are allied to each other, and there- 
fore I bring them under one observation. They are 
more allied to our rational nature than those mentioned 
in the last observation, and therefore are considered by 
themselves. 

It is impossible to distinguish the different attributes 
belonging to the same subject, without judging that 
they are really different and distinguishable, and that 
they have that relation to the subject which logicians 
express by saying that they may be predicated of it. 
We cannot generalize, without judging that the same 
attribute does or may belong to many individuals. It 
has been shown, that our simplest general notions are 
formed by these two operations of distinguishing and 
generalizing; judgment therefore is exercised in form- 
ing the simplest general notions. In those that are more 
complex, and which have been shown to be formed by 
combining the more simple, there is another act of the 
judgment required ; for such combinations are not 
made at random, but for an end ; and judgment is em- 
ployed in fitting them to that end. We form com- 
plex general notions for conveniency of arranging our 
thoughts in discourse and reasoning ; and therefore, of 
an infinite number of combinations that might be formed, 
we choose only those that are useful and necessary. 
29 



33S JUDGMENT. 

That judgment must be employed in dividing, as well 
as in distinguishing, appears evident. It is one thing 
to divide a subject properly, another to cut it in pieces. 
Hoc non est dividere, sed fr anger e rem, said Cicero, 
when he censured an improper division of Epicurus. 
Reason has discovered rules of division, which have 
been known to logicians more than two thousand 
years. 

There are rules likewise of definition of no less an- 
tiquity and authority. A man may no doubt divide or 
define properly without attending to the roles, or even 
without knowing them. But this can only be, when he 
has judgment to perceive that to be right in a particular 
case, which the rule determines to be right in all cases. 

I add, in general, that, without some degree of judg- 
ment, we can form no accurate and distinct notions of 
things ; so that one province of judgment is, to aid us 
in forming clear and distinct conceptions of things, 
which are the only fit materials for reasoning. 

This will probably appear to be a paradox to philoso- 
phers who have always considered the formation of 
ideas of every kind as belonging to simple apprehen- 
sion ; and that the sole province of judgment is to put 
them together in affirmative or negative propositions : 
and therefore it requires some confirmation. 

1. I think it necessarily follows, from what has been 
already said in this observation. For if, without some 
degree of judgment, a man can neither distinguish, nor 
divide, nor define, nor form any general notion, simple 
or complex, he surely, without some degree of judgment, 
cannot have in his mind the materials necessary to rea- 
soning. 

There cannot be any proposition in language which 
does not involve some general conception. The propo- 
sition, that I exist, which Descartes thought the first of 
all truths, and the foundation of all knowledge, cannot 
be conceived without the conception of existence, one 
of the most abstract general conceptions. 

A man cannot believe his own existence, or the ex- 
istence of any thing he sees or remembers, until he has 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 339 

so much judgment as to distinguish things that really 
exist from things which are only conceived. He sees 
a man six feet high ; he conceives a man sixty feet 
high ; he judges the first object to exist, because he sees 
it; the second he does not judge to exist, because he 
only conceives it. Now, I would ask whether he can 
attribute' existence to the first object, and not to the 
second, without knowing what existence means. It is 
impossible. 

In every other proposition, the predicate at least must 
be a general notion, a predicable and a universal being 
one and the same. Besides this, every proposition 
either affirms or denies. And no man can have a dis- 
tinct conception of a proposition, who does not under- 
stand distinctly the meaning of affirming or denying : 
but these are very general conceptions, and, as was be- 
fore observed, are derived from judgment, as their source 
and origin. 

I am sensible that a strong objection may be made 
to this reasoning, and that it may seem to lead to an 
absurdity, or a contradiction. It may be said, that 
every judgment is a mental affirmation or negation. If, 
therefore, some previous exercise of judgment be neces- 
sary to understand what is meant by affirmation or ne- 
gation, the exercise of judgment must go before any 
judgment, which is absurd. In like manner, every 
judgment may be expressed by a proposition, and a 
proposition must be conceived before we can judge of 
it. If, therefore, we cannot conceive the meaning of a 
proposition without a previous exercise of judgment, it 
follows that judgment must be previous to the concep- 
tion of any proposition, and, at the same time, that the 
conception of a proposition must be previous to all 
judgment, which is a contradiction. 

The reader may please to observe, that I have limited 
what I have said to " distinct conception" and " some 
degree of judgment" ; and it is by this means I hope to 
avoid this labyrinth of absurdity and contradiction. 
The faculties of conception and judgment have an in- 
fancy and a maturity, as man has. What I have said is 



340 



JUDGMENT. 



limited to their mature state. I believe in their infant 
state they are very weak and indistinct ; and that, by 
imperceptible degrees, they grow to maturity, each 
giving aid to the other, and receiving aid from it. But 
which of them first began this friendly intercourse is 
beyond my ability to determine. It is like the. question 
concerning the bird and the egg. In the present state 
of things, it is true that every bird comes from an egg, 
and every egg from a bird ; and each may be said to be 
previous to the other. But if we go back to the origin 
of things, there must have been some bird that did not 
come from an egg, or some egg that did not come from 
any bird. 

In like manner, in the mature state of man, distinct 
conception of a proposition supposes some previous ex- 
ercise of judgment, and distinct judgment supposes dis- 
tinct conception. Each may truly be said to come 
from the other, as the bird from the egg, and the egg 
from the bird. But if we trace back this succession to 
its origin, — that is, to the first proposition that was 
ever conceived by the man, and the first judgment he 
ever formed, — I determine nothing about them, nor do 
I know in what order, or how, they were produced.* 



* On the manner in which the human intellect begins to develop itself, 
M. Cousin expresses himself thus: — "Primitively nothing is abstract, 
nothing is general ; every thing is particular, eveiy thing is concrete. The 
understanding does not begin with these formulas : There is no modification 
without its subject ; There is no body without space. But a modification being 
.given, it conceives a particular subject of this modification ; a body being 
given, it conceives that this body is in a space ; a particular succession 
being given, it conceives that this particular succession is in a deter- 
minate time. It is so with all our primitive conceptions ; they are all par- 
ticular, determined, concrete. Our primitive conceptions, moreover, pre- 
sent two distinct characteristics ; some are contingent, others are necessary. 
Under the eye of consciousness there may be a sensation of pleasure or of 
pain, which I perceive as actually existing ; but this sensation may vary, 
change, disappear. Hence very soon may arise the conviction, that 
this sensible phenomenon which I notice is indeed real, but that it may 
exist or may not exist, and therefore I may feel it or not feel it. This is 
a characteristic which philosophers have designated as contingent. But 
when I conceive that a body is in space, if I endeavour to conceive the 
contrary, — that a body may be without space, — I cannot succeed. This 
conception of space is a conception which philosophers have designated by 
the term necessary. 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 341 

The necessity of some degree of judgment to clear 
and distinct conceptions of things may, I think, be 

" But whence do all our conceptions, contingent or necessary, come 1 
From the faculty of conceiving, which is in us, by whatever name you call 
this faculty of which we are all conscious, — mind, reason, thought, under- 
standing, or intelligence. The operations of this faculty, our conceptions, 
are essentially affirmative, — if not orally, yet mentally. To deny, even, is 
to affirm ; for it is to affirm the contrary of what had been first affirmed. 
To doubt, also, is to affirm ; for it is to affirm uncertainty. Besides, we 
evidently do not commence by doubt or negation, but by affirmation. Now 
to affirm, in any way, is to judge. If. then, every intellectual operation re- 
solves itself into an operation of judgment, all our conceptions, whether 
contingent or necessary, resolve themselves into judgments contingent or 
necessary ; aud all our primitive operations being concrete and synthetic, 
it follows that all the primitive judgments, supposed by these operations, 
are also exercised under this form. 

" When the mind translates itself into language, the primary expressions 
of its judgments are, like the judgments themselves, concrete and synthetic. 
Faithful images of the development of the mind, languages begin, not by 
words, but by phrases, by propositions very complex. A primitive propo- 
sition is a whole, corresponding to the natural synthesis by which the 
mind begins. These primitive propositions are by no means abstract 
propositions, such as these : — There is no quality icithout a subject ; There is 
no body without space containing it ; and the like : but they are all particular, 
such as, — / exist ; This body exists ; Such a body is in that space ; God exists. 
These propositions are such as refer to a particular and determinate object, 
which is either self, or body, or God. But after having expressed its 
primitive, concrete, and synthetic propositions, the mind operates upon 
these judgments by abstraction ; it neglects that which is concrete in them 
to consider only the form of them, — for example, the character of neces- 
sity with which many of them are invested, and which, when disengaged 
and developed, gives, instead of the concrete propositions, I exist; These 
bodies are in such a space, &c, the abstract propositions, There can be no 
modification without a subject; There can be no body without space ; There can 
be no succession without time, &c. The general was at first enveloped in the 
particular ; then, from the complexity of the primitive fact, you disengage 
the general from the particular and you express it by itself. 

" We do not begin by propositions, but by judgments ; the judgments 
do not come from the propositions, but the propositions come from the 
judgments, which themselves come from the faculty of judging, which is 
grounded in the original capacity of the mind. A fortiori, then, we do not 
begin by ideas ; for ideas are given us in the propositions. Take, for ex- 
ample, the idea of space. It is not given us by itself, but in this complete 
proposition, There is no body without space, which proposition is only a form 
of a judgment. Take away the proposition, which could not be made 
without the judgment, and you have not the ideas ; but as soon as lan- 
guage permits you to translate your judgments into propositions, then you 
can consider separately the different elements of these propositions, that is 
to say, ideas, separately from each other. 

" To speak strictly, there are in nature no propositions, either concrete 
or abstract, particular or general, and still less are there ideas in nature. 
What is there in nature ? Besides bodies there is nothing except minds, 

29* 



342 JUDGMENT. 

illustrated by this similitude. An artisan, suppose a 
carpenter, cannot work in his art without tools, and 
these tools must be made by art. The exercise of the 
art, therefore, is necessary to make the tools, and the 
tools are necessary to the exercise of the art. There is 
the same appearance of contradiction as in what I 
have advanced concerning the necessity of some degree 
of judgment in order to form clear and distinct con- 
ceptions of things. These are the tools we must use 
in judging and in reasoning, and without them must 
make very bungling work ; yet these tools cannot be 
made without some exercise of judgment. 

2. The necessity of some degree of judgment in 
forming accurate and distinct notions of things will 
further appear, if we consider attentively what notions 
we can form without any aid of judgment, (1.) of the 
objects of sense, (2.) of the operations of our own minds, 
or (3.) of the relations of things. 

(1.) To begin with the objects of sense. It is ac- 
knowledged on all hands, that the first notions we have 
of sensible objects are got by the external senses only, 
and probably before judgment is brought forth ; but 
these first notions are neither simple, nor are they accu- 
rate and distinct, — rudis indigestaque moles. Before we 
can have any distinct notion of this mass, it must be 
analyzed ; the heterogeneous parts must be separated 
in our conception, and the simple elements, which be- 
fore lay hid in the common mass, must first be distin- 
guished, and then put together into one whole. In this 

and among these, that which is ourselves, which conceives and knows di- 
rectly things, — minds and bodies. And in the order of minds what is 
there innate ? Nothing but the mind itself, the understanding, the faculty 
of knowing. The understanding, as Leibnitz has profoundly said, is innate 
to itself: the development of the understanding is equally innate, in this 
sense,' that it cannot but take place when the understanding is once given, 
with the power which is proper to it, and the conditions of its development 
supplied. There are no innate ideas, any more than innate propositions ; 
but there is a capacity, faculty, or power, innate in the understanding, that 
acts and projects itself in primitive judgments, which, when language 
comes in, express themselves in propositions, and these propositions, de- 
composed by abstraction and analvsis, engender distinct ideas." — Elements 
of Psychology, Chap. VII. — Ed. 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 343 

way it is that we form distinct notions even of the ob- 
jects of sense ; but this analysis and composition, by 
habit, becomes so easy, and is performed so readily, 
that we are apt to overlook it, and to impute the dis- 
tinct notion we have formed of the object to the senses 
alone ; and this we are the more prone to do, because, 
when once we have distinguished the sensible qualities 
of the object from one another, the sense gives testi- 
mony to each of them. 

You perceive, for instance, an object white, round, 
and a foot in diameter : I grant that you perceive all 
these attributes of the object by sense ; but if you had 
not been able to distinguish the color from the figure, 
and both from the magnitude, your senses would only 
have given you one complex and confused notion of all 
these mingled together. A man who is able to say 
with understanding, or to determine in his own mind, 
that this object is white, must have distinguished 
whiteness from other attributes. If he has not made 
this distinction, he does not understand what he says. 

Suppose a cube of brass to be presented at the same 
time to a child of a year old and to a man. The regu- 
larity of the figure will attract the attention of both ; 
both have the senses of sight and of touch in equal 
perfection ; and therefore, if any thing be discovered in 
this object by the man which cannot be discovered by 
the child, it must be owing, not to the senses, but to 
some other faculty which the child has not yet attained. 
First, then, the man can easily distinguish the body 
from the surface which terminates it ; this the child 
cannot do. Secondly, the man can perceive that this 
surface is made up of six planes of the same figure and 
magnitude ; the child cannot discover this. Thirdly, 
the man perceives that each of these planes has four 
equal sides and four equal angles, and that the oppo- 
site sides of each plane, and the opposite planes, are 
parallel. 

It will surely be allowed that a man of ordinary judg- 
ment may observe all this in a cube which he makes an 
object of contemplation and takes time to consider; 



344 JUDGMENT. 

that he may give the name of a square to a plane 
terminated by four equal sides and four equal angles, 
and the name of a cube to a solid terminated by six 
equal squares ; all this is nothing else but analyzing 
the figure of the object presented to his senses into its 
simplest elements, and again compounding it of those 
elements. By this analysis and composition two effects 
are produced. 1. From the one complex object which 
his senses presented, though one of the most simple 
the senses can present, he educes many simple and dis- 
tinct notions of right lines, angles, plane surface, solid, 
equality, parallelism ; notions which the child has not 
yet faculties to attain. 2. When he considers the cube 
as compounded of these elements, put together in a 
certain order, he has then, and not before, a distinct 
and scientific notion of a cube. The child neither con- 
ceives those elements, nor in what order they must be 
put together, so as to make a perfect cube ; and there- 
fore has no accurate notion of a cube, which can make 
it a subject of reasoning. 

Hence it is, that when any vehement passion or 
emotion hinders the cool application of judgment, we 
get no distinct notion of an object, even though the 
sense be long directed to it. A man who is put into a 
panic by thinking he sees a ghost, may stare at it long 
without having any distinct notion of it ; it is his un- 
derstanding and not his sense that is disturbed by his 
horror. If he can lay that aside, judgment immediately 
enters upon its office, and examines the length and 
breadth, the color and figure and distance of the object. 
Of these, while his panic lasted, he had no distinct 
notion, though his eyes were open all the time. When 
the eye of sense is open, but that of judgment shut by 
a panic, or by any violent emotion that engrosses the 
mind, we see things confusedly, and probably much in 
the same manner that brutes and perfect idiots do, and 
infants before the use of judgment. 

There are, therefore, notions of the objects of sense 
which are gross and indistinct, and there are others that 
are distinct and scientific. The former may be got 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 345 

from the senses alone, but the latter cannot be obtained 
without some degree of judgment. 

The clear and accurate notions which geometry pre- 
sents to us of a point, a right line, an angle, a square, 
a circle, of ratios direct and inverse, and others of that 
kind, can find no admittance into a mind that has not 
some degree of judgment. They are not properly ideas 
of the senses, nor are they got by compounding ideas 
of the senses ; but by analyzing the ideas or notions 
we get by the senses into their simplest elements, and 
again combining these elements into various, accurate, 
and elegant forms, which the senses never did nor can 
exhibit. 

(2.) Having said so much of the notions we get from 
the senses alone of the objects of sense, let us next 
consider what notions we can have from consciousness 
alone of the operations of our minds. 

Mr. Locke very properly calls consciousness an in- 
ternal sense. It gives the like immediate knowledge of 
things in the mind, that is, of our own thoughts and 
feelings, as the senses give us of things external. There 
is this difference, however, that an external object may 
be at rest, and the sense may be employed about it for 
some time. But the objects of consciousness are never 
at rest ; the stream of thought flows like a river, with- 
out stopping a moment ; the whole train of thought 
passes in succession under the eye of consciousness, 
which is always employed about the present. But is 
it consciousness that analyzes complex operations, dis- 
tinguishes their different ingredients, and combines 
them in distinct parcels under general names ? This 
surely is not the work of consciousness, nor can it be 
performed without reflection, recollecting and judging 
of what we were conscious of and distinctly remem- 
ber. This reflection does not appear in children. Of 
all the powers of the mind, it seems to be of the latest 
growth, whereas consciousness is coeval with 4 the ear- 
liest. 

Mr. Locke has restricted the word reflection to that 
which is employed about the operations of our minds, 



346 JUDGMENT. 

without any authority, as I think, from custom, the 
arbiter of language ; for surely I may reflect upon what 
I have seen or heard, as well as upon what I have 
thought. The word, in its proper and common mean- 
ing, is equally applicable to objects of sense and to 
objects of consciousness.* He has likewise confounded 
reflection with consciousness, and seems not to have 
been aware that they are different powers, and appear 
at very different periods of life. 

(3.) I proposed, in the third place, to consider our 
notions of the relations of things : and here I think, 
that, without judgment, we cannot have any notion of 
relations. 

There are two ways in which* we get the notion of 
relations. 

The first is by comparing the related objects, when 
we have before had the conception of both. By this 
comparison, we perceive the relation, either immedi- 
ately, or by a process of reasoning. That my foot is 
longer than my finger, I perceive immediately ; and 
that three is the half of six. This immediate percep- 
tion is immediate and intuitive judgment. That the 
angles at the base of an isosceles triangle are equal, I 
perceive by a process of reasoning, in which it will be 
acknowledged there is judgment. 

Another way in -which we get the notion of relations 
(which seems not to have occurred to Mr. Locke) is, 
when, by attention to one of the related objects, we 
perceive or judge that it must, from its nature, have a 
certain relation to something else, which before, per- 
haps, we never thought of; and thus our attention to 
one of the related objects produces the notion of its cor- 
relate, and of a certain relation between them. Thus, 
when I attend to color, figure, weight, I cannot help 
judging these to be qualities which cannot exist with- 

* Here, as before, Reid errs in what lie says of reflection. Conscious- 
ness and reflection cannot be analyzed into different powers. Reflection, 
in Locke's meaning of the word (and this is the more correct), is only con- 
sciousness, concentrated by an act of the will on the phenomena of mind, — i. e. 
internal attention ; in Reid's, what is it but attention in general ? — H. 



ITS NATURE AND PROVINCE. 347» 

out a subject; that is, something which is colored, 
figured, heavy. If I had not perceived such things to 
be qualities, I should never have had any notion of 
their subject, or of their relation to it. Also, by attend- 
ing to the operations of thinking, memory, reasoning, 
we perceive or judge that there must be something 
which thinks, remembers, and reasons, which we call 
the mind. When we attend to any change that hap- 
pens in nature, judgment informs us that there must be 
a cause of this change, which had power to produce 
it ; and thus we get the notions of cause and effect, and 
of the relation between them. When we attend to body, 
we perceive that it cannot exist without space ; hence 
we get the notion of space (which is neither an object 
of sense nor of consciousness), and of the relation 
which bodies have to a certain portion of unlimited 
space, as their place. 

I apprehend, therefore, that all our notions of rela- 
tion may more properly be ascribed to judgment as 
their source and origin, than to any other power of the 
mind. We must first perceive relations by our judg- 
ment, before we can conceive them without judging of 
them ; as we must first perceive colors by sight, before 
we can conceive them without seeing them. 

III. Locke's Distinction between Knowledge and Judg- 
ment rejected.] I take it to be a peculiarity of Mr. 
Locke, that he makes knoivledge and judgment distinct 
faculties of the mind. His words are [Essay, Book IV. 
Chap. XIV. §§ 3, 4) : — « The faculty which God has 
given to man to supply the want of clear and certain 
knowledge, where that cannot be had, is judgment; 
whereby the mind takes its ideas to agree or disagree, 
or, which is the same, any proposition to be true or 
false, without perceiving a demonstrative evidence in 
the proofs. Thus, the mind has two faculties, conver- 
sant about truth and falsehood. First, Knowledge, 
whereby it certainly perceives, and is undoubtedly sat- 
isfied of the agreement or disagreement of any ideas. 
Secondly, Judgment, which is the putting ideas together, 



348 JUDGMENT. 

or separating them from one another in the mind, when 
their certain agreement or disagreement is not per- 
ceived, but presumed to be so." 

Knowledge, I think, sometimes signifies things known ; 
sometimes that act of the mind by which we know 
them. And in like manner opinion sometimes signifies 
things believed ; sometimes the act of the mind by 
which we believe them. But judgment is the faculty 
which is exercised in both these acts of the mind. In 
knowledge, we judge without doubting ; in opinion, 
with some mixture of doubt. But I know no authority, 
besides that of Mr. Locke, for calling knowledge a 
faculty, any more than for calling opinion a faculty. 
Neither do I think that knowledge is confined within 
the narrow limits which Mr. Locke assigns to it ; be- 
cause the far greater part of what all men call human 
knowledge is in things which admit of neither intuitive 
nor demonstrative proof. 

I have all along used the word judgment in a more 
extended sense than Mr. Locke does in the passage 
above mentioned. I understand by it that operation 
of mind by which we determine, concerning any thing 
that may be expressed by a proposition, whether it be 
true or false. Every proposition is either true or false ; 
so is every judgment. A proposition may be simply 
conceived without judging of it. But when there is 
not only a conception of the proposition, but a mental 
affirmation or negation, an assent or dissent of the 
understanding, whether weak or strong, that is judg- 
ment. 

I think that, since the days of Aristotle, logicians, 
and other writers, for the most part, have taken the 
word in this sense, though it has other meanings, which 
there is no danger of confounding with this. We may 
take the authority of Dr. Watts, as a logician, as a 
man who understood English, and who had a just 
esteem of Mr. Locke's Essay. Logic, Introduction : — 
" Judgment is that operation of the mind, wherein we 
join two or more ideas together by one affirmation or 
negation : that is, we either affirm or deny this to be 



OF COMMON SENSE. 349 

that. So this tree is high ; that horse is not swift ; the 
mind of man is a thinking* being ; mere matter has no 
thought belonging to it ; God is just ; good men are 
often miserable in this world ; a righteous governor will 
make a difference betwixt the evil and the good ; which 
sentences are the effect of judgment, and are called 
propositions." And, Part II. Chap. II. Sect. IX. : — 
" The evidence of sense is, when we frame a proposi- 
tion according to the dictate of any of our senses. So 
we judge, that grass is green ; that a trumpet gives a 
pleasant sound; that fire burns wood; water is soft; 
and iron hardP 

In this meaning, judgment extends to every kind of 
evidence, probable or. certain, and to every degree of 
assent or dissent. It extends to all knowledge as well 
as to all opinion : with this difference only, that in 
knowledge it is more firm and steady, like a house 
founded upon a rock ; in opinion it stands upon a 
weaker foundation, and is more liable to be shaken and 
overturned. 

These differences about the meaning of words are 
not mentioned as if truth were on one side, and error 
on the other, but as an apology for deviating, in this 
instance, from the phraseology of Mr. Locke, which is 
for the most part accurate and distinct ; and because 
attention to the different meanings that are put upon 
words by different authors is the best way to prevent 
our mistaking verbal differences for real differences of 
opinion. 



CHAPTER II. 

OF COMMON SENSE. 

I. Different Significations of the Term Sense in Philo- 
sophical and Popular Language.] The word sense, in 
common language, seems to have a different meaning 
30 



350 JUDGMENT. 

from that which it has in the writings of philosophers ; 
and those different meanings are apt to be confounded, 
and to occasion embarrassment and error. Not to go 
back to ancient philosophy upon this point, modern 
philosophers consider sense as a power that has nothing 
to do with judgment. Sense they consider as the 
power by which we receive certain ideas or impressions 
from objects ; and judgment as the power by which 
we compare those ideas, and perceive their necessary 
agreements and disagreements. 

The external senses give us the idea of color, figure, 
sound, and other qualities of body, primary or sec- 
ondary. Mr. Locke gave the name of internal sense to 
consciousness, because by it we have the ideas of 
thought, memory, reasoning, and other operations of 
our own minds. Dr. Hutcheson, of Glasgow, conceiv- 
ing that we have simple and original ideas which can- 
not be imputed either to the external senses or to con- 
sciousness, introduced other internal senses • such as 
the sense of harmony, the sense of beauty, and the moral 
sense. Ancient philosophers also spoke of internal 
senses, of which memory was accounted one. 

But all these senses, whether external or internal, 
have been represented by philosophers as the means of 
furnishing our minds with ideas, without including any 
kind of judgment. Dr. Hutcheson defines a sense to 
be " a determination of the mind to receive any idea 
from the presence of an object independent on our will." 

" By this term [sewse] philosophers in general have 
denominated those faculties, in consequence of which 
we are liable to feelings relative to ourselves only, and 
from which they have not pretended to draw any con- 
clusions concerning the nature of things ; whereas truth 
is not relative, but absolute and real." — Dr. Priestley's 
Examination of Dr. Reid, &c, p. 123. 

On the contrary, in common language, sense always 
implies judgment. A man of sense is a man of judg- 
ment. Good sense is good judgment. Nonsense is 
what is evidently contrary to right judgment. Com- 
mon sense is that degree of judgment which is com- 



OF COMMON SENSE. 351 

mon to men with whom we can converse and transact 
business. 

Seeing and hearing by philosophers are called senses, 
because we have ideas by them ; by the vulgar they 
are called senses, because we judge by them. We 
judge of colors by the eye ; of sounds by the ear ; of 
beauty and deformity by taste ; of right and wrong in 
conduct by our moral sense or conscience. 

Sometimes philosophers, who represent it as the sole 
province of sense to furnish us with ideas, fall una- 
wares into the popular opinion, that they are judging 
faculties. Thus Locke, Book IV. Chap. XL § 2 : — 
" And of this (that the quality or accident of color 
really exists, and has a being without me), the greatest 
assurance I can possibly have, and to which my fac- 
ulties can attain, is the testimony of my eyes, which 
are the proper and sole judges of this thing." 

This popular meaning of the word sense is not 
peculiar to the English language. The corresponding 
words in Greek, Latin, and I believe in all the Euro- 
pean languages, have the same latitude. The Latin 
words s entire, sententia, sensa* sensus, from the last of 
which the English word sense is borrowed, express judg- 
ment or opinion, and are applied indifferently to objects 
of external sense, of taste, of morals, and of the under- 
standing. 

I cannot pretend to assign the reason why a word, 
which is no term of art, which is familiar in common 
conversation, should have so different a meaning in 
philosophical writings. I shall only observe, that the 
philosophical meaning corresponds perfectly with the 
account which Mr. Locke and other modern philoso- 
phers give of judgment. For if the sole province of 
the senses, external and internal, be to furnish the mind 
with the ideas about which we judge and reason, it 
seems to be a natural consequence, that the sole prov- 



* What does sensa mean 1 Is it an erratum, or does he refer to sensa, — 
once only, I believe, employed by Cicero, and interpreted by Nonius Mar- 
cellus as quae sentiuntur? — H. 



352 JUDGMENT. 

ince of judgment should be to compare those ideas, 
and to perceive their necessary relations. 

These two opinions seem to be so connected, that 
one may have been the cause of the other. I appre- 
hend, however, that, if both be true, there is no room 
left for any knowledge or judgment, either of the real 
existence of contingent things, or of their contingent 
relations. 

To return to the popular meaning of the word sense. 
I believe it would be much more difficult to find good 
authors who never use it in that meaning, than to find 
such as do. We may take Mr. Pope as good authority 
for the meaning of an English word. He uses it often, 
and in his Epistle to the Earl of Burlington has made 
a little descant upon it. 

" Oft have you hinted to your brother peer 
A certain truth, which many buy too dear ; 
Something there is more needful than expense, 
And something previous e'en to taste, — 't is sense. 
Good sense, which only is the gift of Heaven ; 
And though no science, fairly worth the seven ; 
A light, which in yourself you must perceive, 
Jones and Le Notre have it not to give." 

II. Meaning- of the Term Common Sense.] This in- 
ward light or sense is given by Heaven to different per- 
sons in different degrees. There is a certain degree of 
it which is necessary to our being subjects of law and 
government, capable of managing our own affairs, and 
answerable for our conduct towards others : this is 
called common sense, because it is common to all men 
whom we can transact business with, or call to account 
for their conduct. 

The laws of all civilized nations distinguish those 
who have this gift of Heaven from those who have it 
not. The last may have rights which ought not to be 
violated, but, having no understanding in themselves to 
direct their actions, the laws appoint them to be guided 
by the understanding of others. It is easily discerned 
by its effects in men's actions, in their speeches, and 
even in their looks; and when it is made a question, 



OF COMMON SENSE. 



353 



whether a man has this natural gift or not, a judge or 
a jury, upon a short conversation with him, can, for the 
most part, determine the question with great assurance. 

The same degree of understanding which makes a 
man capable of acting with common prudence in the 
conduct of life, makes him capable of discovering what 
is true and what is false in matters that are self-evident, 
and which he distinctly apprehends. All knowledge, 
and all science, must be built upon principles that are 
self-evident ; and of such principles, every man who 
has common sense is a competent judge, when he con- 
ceives them distinctly. Hence it is, that disputes very 
often terminate in an appeal to common sense. While 
the parties agree in the first principles on which their 
arguments are grounded, there is room for reasoning ; 
but when one denies what to the other appears too 
evident to need or to admit of proof, reasoning seems 
to be at an end ; an appeal is made to common sense, 
and each party is left to enjoy his own opinion. 

There seems to be no remedy for this, nor any way 
left to discuss such appeals, unless the decisions of 
common sense can be brought into a code, in which 
all reasonable men shall acquiesce. This, indeed, if it 
were possible, would be very desirable, and would sup- 
ply a desideratum in logic ; and why should it be 
thought impossible that reasonable men should agree 
in things that are self-evident? 

All that is intended in this chapter is to explain the 
meaning of common sense, that it may not be treated, 
as it has been by some, as a new principle, or as a 
word without any meaning. I have endeavoured to 
show, that sense, in its most common, and therefore its 
most proper meaning, signifies judgment, though phi- 
losophers often use it in another meaning. From this 
it is natural to think, that common sense should mean 
common judgment; and so it really does. 

What the precise limits are which divide common 
judgment from what is beyond it, on the one hand, and 
from what falls short of it, on the other, may be diffi- 
cult to determine ; and men may agree in the meaning 
30* 



354 JUDGMENT. 

of the word who have different opinions about those 
limits, or who even never thought of fixing them. This 
is as intelligible as that all Englishmen should mean 
the same thing by the county of York, though perhaps 
not a hundredth part of them can point out its precise 
limits. Indeed, it seems to me that common sense is as 
unambiguous a word, and as well understood, as the 
county of York. We find it in innumerable places in 
good writers ; we hear it on innumerable occasions in 
conversation ; and, as far as I am able to judge, always 
in the same meaning. And this is probably the reason 
why it is so seldom defined or explained. 

Dr. Johnson, in the authorities he gives to show that 
the word sense signifies understanding, soundness of 
facidties, strength of natural reason, quotes Dr. Bentley 
for what may be called u definition of common sense, 
though probably not intended for that purpose, but 
mentioned accidentally : — " God hath endowed man- 
kind with power and abilities, which we call natural 
light and reason, and common sense." 

It is true, that common sense is a popular, and not 
a scholastic word ; and by most of those who have 
treated systematically of the powers of the understand- 
ing, it is only occasionally mentioned, as it is by other 
writers. But I recollect two philosophical writers who 
are exceptions to this remark. One is Buffier, who 
treated largely of common sense, as a principle of 
knowledge, above fifty years ago.* The other is Bishop 

* " Buffier's Traiti des Premieres Vcritez was first published in 1717, his 
Siemens de Mdtaphysicpie in 1724. If we except Lord Herbert's treatise 
De Veritate, these works exhibit the first regular and comprehensive 
attempt to found philosophy on certain primary truths, given in certain 
primary sentiments or feelings." In his Supplementary Dissertations, Note 
A, § 6, Sir W. Hamilton subjoins a succinct exposition of Burner's doc- 
trine, and concludes the article by warning his readers against the misrep- 
resentations of the anonymous English translator of the treatise on First 
Truths. "Not only," as he tells us, "have these never been exposed, but 
Mr. Stewart has bestowed on that individual an adventitious importance, 
by' lauding his ' acuteness and intelligence,' while acquiescing in his 'severe 
but just animadversions' on Dr. Beattie. — Elements, Part II. Chap. I. 
Sect. III. 

" The translator to his version, which appeared in 1780, has annexed an 
elaborate Preface, the sole object of which is to inveigh against Beid, 



OF COMMON SENSE. 355 

Berkeley, who, I think, has laid as much stress upon 
common sense, in opposition to the doctrines of phi- 

Beattie, and Oswald, — more especially the last two, — for at once stealing 
and spoiling the doctrine of the learned Jesuit. 

" In regard to the spoiling, the translator is the only culprit. According 
to him Buffier's 'common sense is a disposition of mind not natural, but 
acquired by age and time.' (pp. iv., xxxiv.) ' Those first truths which 
are its object require experience and meditation to be conceived, and the 
judgments thence derived are the result of exercising reason.' (p. v.) 
' The use of reason is reasoning ' ; and ' common sense is that degree of un- 
derstanding in all tilings to which the generality of mankind are capable 
of attaining by the exertion of their rational faculty.' (p. xvii.) In fact, 
Buffier's first truths, on his translator's showing, are last truths ; for when 
1 by time we arrive at the knowledge of an infinitude of things, and by the 
use of reason (i. e. by reasoning) form our judgment on them, those judg- 
ments are then justly to be considered as first truths' !!! (p. xviii.) But how, 
it will be asked, does he give any color to so unparalleled a perversion ? 
By the very easy process of, — 1°, throwing out of account, or perverting, 
what his author does say ; — 2°, interpolating what his author not only 
does not say, but what is in the very teeth of his assertions ; and 3°, by 
founding on these perversions and interpolations as on the authentic words 
of his author. 

" As to the plagiarism, I may take this opportunity of putting down, 
once and for ever, this imputation, although the character of the man 
might have well exempted Reid from all suspicion of so unworthy an act. 
It applies only to the Inquiry ; and there the internal evidence is almost of 
itself sufficient to prove that Reid could not, prior to that publication, have 
been acquainted with Buffier's treatise. The strongest, indeed the sole 
presumption, arises from the employment, by both philosophers, of the 
term common sense, which, strange to say, sounded to many in this country 
as singular and new ; whilst it was even commonly believed, that, before 
Reid, Buffier was the first, indeed the only philosopher, who had taken 
notice of this principle, as one of the genuine sources of our knowledge. 
After the testimonies now adduced, and to be adduced, it M r ould be the 
apex of absurdity to presume that none but Buffier could have suggested 
to Reid either the principle or its designation. Here are given forty-eight 
authorities, ancient and modern, for the philosophical employment of the 
term common sense, previous to Reid, and from any of these Reid may be 
said to have borrowed it with equal justice as from Buffier ; but, taken 
together, they concur in proving that the expression, in the application in 
question, was one in general use, and free as the air to all and each who 
chose thus to employ it. 

" But, in fact, what has not been noticed, we know, from an incidental 
statement of Reid himself, — and this, be it noticed, prior to the charge of 
plagiarism, — that he only became acquainted with the treatise of Buffier 
after the publication of his own Inquiry. For in his Account of Aristotle's 
Logic, written and publislicd some ten years subsequently to that work, he 
says. — ' I have lately met with a very judicious treatise written by Father 
Burner,' &c., Chap. VI. Sect. II. Compare, also, Intellectual Powers [the 
passage to which this note is appended]. In this last work, however, pub- 
lished after the translation of Buffier, though indirectly defending the less 
manifestly innocent partners in the accusation from the charge advanced, 
his self-respect prevents him from saying a single word in his own vindi- 
cation." — Ed. 



356 JUDGMENT. 

losophers, as any philosopher that has come after 
him. 

Men rarely ask what common sense is ; because 
every man believes himself possessed of it, and would 
take it for an imputation upon his understanding to be 
thought unacquainted with it. Yet I remember two 
very eminent authors who have put this question ; and 
it is not improper to hear their sentiments upon a sub- 
ject so frequently mentioned, and so rarely canvassed. 

It is well known, that Lord Shaftesbury gave to one 
of his treatises the title of Sensus Communis ; an Essay 
on the Freedom of Wit and Humor, in a Letter to a 
Friend ; in which he puts his friend in mind of a free 
conversation with some of their friends on the subjects 
of morality and religion. Amidst the different opinions 
started and maintained with great life and ingenuity, 
one or other would every now and then take the liberty 
to appeal to common sense. Every one allowed the 
appeal ; no one would offer to call the authority of the 
court in question, till a gentleman, whose good under- 
standing was never yet brought in doubt, desired the 
company very gravely that they would tell him what 
common sense was. 

" If," said he, " by the word sense, we were to under- 
stand opinion and judgment, and by the word common, 
the generality, or any considerable part of mankind, it 
would be hard to discover where the subject of com- 
mon sense could lie ; for that which was according to 
the sense of one part of mankind was against the sense 
of another : and if the majority were to determine 
common sense, it would change as often as men 
changed. That, in religion, common sense was as 
hard to determine as catholic or orthodox. What to 
one was absurdity, to another was demonstration. In 
policy, if plain British or Dutch sense were right, 
Turkish and French must certainly be wrong. And as 
mere nonsense as passive obedience seemed, we found 
it to be the common sense of a great party amongst 
ourselves, a greater party in Europe, and perhaps the 
greatest party in all the world besides. As for morals, 



OF COMMON SENSE. 357 

the difference was still wider ; for even the philosophers 
could never agree in one and the same system. And 
some, even of our most admired modern philosophers, 
had fairly told us, that virtue and vice had no other 
law or measure than mere fashion and vogue." 

This is the substance of the gentleman's speech, 
which, I apprehend, explains the meaning of the word 
perfectly, and contains all that has been said, or can be 
said, against the authority of common sense, and the 
propriety of appeals to it. As there is no mention of 
any answer immediately made to this speech, we might 
be apt to conclude, that the noble author adopted the 
sentiments of the intelligent gentleman whose speech 
he recites. But the contrary is manifest, from the title 
of Sensus Communis given to his Essay, from his fre- 
quent use of the word, and from the whole tenor of 
the Essay. 

The author appears to have a double intention in 
that Essay, corresponding to the double title prefixed 
to it. One intention is, to justify the use of wit, hu- 
mor, and ridicule, in discussing among friends the 
gravest subjects. " I can very well suppose," says he, 
" men may be frighted out of their wits ; but I have 
no apprehension they should be laughed out of them. 
I can hardly imagine, that, in a pleasant way, they 
should ever be talked out of their love for society, or 
reasoned out of humanity and common sense." 

The other intention, signified by the title Sensus 
Communis, is carried on hand in hand with the first, 
and is, to show that common sense is not so vague and 
uncertain a thing as it is represented to be in the skep- 
tical speech before recited. " I will try," says he, " what 
certain knowledge or assurance of things may be re- 
covered in that very way (to wit, of humor), by which 
all certainty, you thought, was lost, and an endless 
skepticism introduced." 

He gives some criticisms upon the expression sensus 
communis in Juvenal, Horace, and Seneca ; and after 
showing, in a facetious way, throughout the treatise, 
that the fundamental principles of morals, of politics, 



358 JUDGMENT. 

of criticism, and of every branch of knowledge, are the 
dictates of common sense, he sums up the whole in 
these words: — "That some moral and philosophical 
truths there are so evident in themselves, that it would 
be easier to imagine half mankind run mad, and joined 
precisely in the same species of folly, than to admit 
any thing as truth, which should be advanced against 
such natural knowledge, fundamental reason, and com- 
mon sense." And, on taking leave, he adds, — " And 
now, my friend, should you find I had moralized in any 
tolerable manner according to common sense, and with- 
out canting, I should be satisfied with my perform- 
ance." 

Another eminent writer who has put the question 
what common sense is, is Fenelon, the famous Arch- 
bishop of Cambray. That ingenious and pious author, 
having had an early prepossession in favor of the Car- 
tesian philosophy, made an attempt to establish, on 
a sure foundation, the metaphysical arguments which 
Descartes had invented to prove the being of the Deity. 
For this purpose, he begins with the Cartesian doubt. 
He proceeds to find out the truth of his own existence, 
and then to examine wherein the evidence and certainty 
of this and other such primary truths consisted. This, 
according to Cartesian principles, he places in the clear- 
ness and distinctness of the ideas. On the contrary, 
he places the absurdity of the contrary propositions in 
their being repugnant to his clear and distinct ideas. 

To illustrate this, he gives various examples of ques- 
tions manifestly absurd and ridiculous, which every 
man of common understanding would at first sight 
perceive to be so, and then goes on to this purpose : — 
" What is it that makes these questions ridiculous ? 
AVherein does this ridicule precisely consist ? It will 
perhaps be replied, that it consists in this, that they 
shock common sense. But what is this same common 
sense ? Is it not the first notions that all men have 
equally of the same things ? This common sense, which 
is always and in all places the same ; which prevents 
inquiry ; which makes inquiry in some cases ridiculous ; 



OF COMMON SENSE. 359 

which, instead of inquiring, makes a man laugh whether 
he will or not ; which puts it out of a man's power to 
doubt; this sense, which only waits to be consulted, — 
which shows itself at the first glance, and immediately 
discovers the evidence or the absurdity of a question, — 
is not this the same that I call my ideas ? 

" Behold, then, those ideas or general notions, which 
it is not in my power either to contradict or examine, 
and by which I examine and decide in every case, in- 
somuch that I laugh instead of answering, as often as 
any thing is proposed to me which is evidently con- 
trary to what these immutable ideas represent." 

I shall only observe upon this passage, that the in- 
terpretation it gives of Descartes's criterion of truth, 
whether just or not, is the most intelligible and the 
most favorable I have met with. 

I beg leave to mention one passage from Cicero, and 
to add two or three from late writers, which show that 
this word has not become obsolete, or changed its 
meaning. De Oratore, Lib. III. 50. — " Omnes enim 
tacito quodam sensu, sine ulla arte aut ratione, in arti- 
bus ac rationibus, recta ac prava dijudicant. Idque 
cum faciant in picturis, et in signis, et in aliis operibus, 
ad quorum intelligentiam a natura minus habent in- 
strument!, turn multo ostendunt magis in verborum, 
numerorum, vocumque judicio ; quod ea sint in com- 
munibus infixa sensibus ; neque earum rerum quem- 
quam funditus natura voluit expertem." 

Hume's Essays and Treatises, Vol. I. p. 5. — " But a 
philosopher who proposes only to represent the common 
sense of mankind in more beautiful and more engaging 
colors, if by accident he commits a mistake, goes no 
further, but, renewing his appeal to common sense and 
the natural sentiments of the mind, returns into the 
right path, and secures himself from any dangerous 
illusion." 

Hume's Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 
p. 2. — " Those who have refused the reality of moral 
distinctions may be ranked among the disingenuous 
disputants. The only way of converting an antagonist 



360 JUDGMENT. 

of this kind is to leave him to himself: for, finding that 
nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is proba- 
ble he will at last, of himself, from mere weariness, 
come over to the side of common sense and reason." 

Priestley's Institutes^ Preliminary Essay, Vol. I. p. 27. 
— " Because common sense is a sufficient guard against 
many errors in religion, it seems to have been taken for 
granted, that that common sense is a sufficient in- 
structor also, whereas in fact, without positive instruc- 
tion, men would naturally have been mere savages with 
respect to religion ; as, without similar instruction, they 
would be savages with respect to the arts of life and 
the sciences. Common sense can only be compared 
to a judge ; but what can a judge do without evi- 
dence and proper materials from which to form a judg- 
ment?" 

Priestley's Examination of Dr. Reid, &c, p. 127. — 
" But should we, out of complaisance, admit that what 
has hitherto been called judgment may be called sense, 
it is making too free with the established signification 
of words to call it common sense, which, in common 
acceptation, has long been appropriated to a very differ- 
ent thing, viz., to that capacity for judging of common 
things that persons of middling capacities are capable 
of." Again, p. 129. — "I should therefore expect, that, 
if a man was so totally deprived of common sense as 
not to be able to distinguish truth from falsehood in 
one case, he would be equally incapable of distinguish- 
ing it in another." 

From this cloud of testimonies, to which hundreds 
might be added, I apprehend that whatever censure is 
thrown upon those who have spoken of common sense 
as a principle of knowledge, or who have appealed to it 
in matters that are self-evident, will fall light, when 
there are so many to share in it. Indeed, the authority 
of this tribunal is too sacred and venerable, and has 
prescription too long in its favor, to be now wisely 
called in question. Those who are disposed to do 
so may remember the shrewd saying of Mr. Hobbes, 
— " When reason is against a man, a man will be 



OF COMMON SENSE. 



361 



against reason." This is equally applicable to common 
sense.* 



* In the fifth section of the same Dissertation referred to in the last note, 
Sir W. Hamilton defines with clearness and precision the various accep- 
tations of the term common sense, only two or three of which need here be 
noticed. Sometimes " it denotes the complement of those cognitions or convic- 
tions which ive receive from nature ; -which all men profess in common ; and by 
which they test the truth of knowledge and the morality of actions. This is the 
meaning in which the expression is now emphatically employed in philoso- 
phy, and which may be, therefore, called its philosophical signification. As 
authorities for its use in this relation, Reid has adduced legitimate exam- 
ples from Bent-ley, Shaftesbury, Fenelon, Burner, and Hume. The others 
which he quotes from Cicero and Priestley can hardly be considered as 
more than instances of the employment of the words ; for the former, in 
the particular passage quoted, does not seem to mean by sensus communis 
more than the faculty of apprehending sensible relations which all possess ; 
and the latter explicitly states, that he uses the words in the meaning which 
we are hereafter to consider. Mr. Stewart, Elements, Part II. Chap. I. 
Sect IV., to the examples of Reid adds only a single, and that not an un- 
ambiguous instance, from Bayle. It therefore still remains to show that in 
this signification its employment is not only of authorized usage, but, in 
fact, one long and universally established. This is done in the series of 
testimonies I shall adduce in a subsequent part of this note [from Hesiod 
to De la Mennais, in all one hundred and six witnesses], — principally, in- 
deed, to prove that the doctrine of common sense, notwithstanding many 
schismatic aberrations, is the one catholic and perennial philosophy, but 
which also concur in showing that this, too, is the name under which that 
doctrine has for two thousand years been most familiarly known, at least 
in the Western world. Of these, Lucretius, Cicero, Horace, Seneca, Ter- 
tullian, Arnobius. and St. Augustine exhibit the expression as recognized 
in the language and philosophy of ancient Rome ; while some fifty others 
prove its scientific and colloquial usage in every country of modern Eu- 
rope." 

According to another acceptation of the term common sense, " it denotes 
such an ordinary complement of intelligence, that, if a person be deficient therein, 
he is accounted mad or foolish. Sensus communis is thus used in Phredrus, 
Lib. I. 7 ; but Horace, Serm-, Lib. I. 3, and Juvenal, Sat. VIII. 73, are 
erroneously, though usually, interpreted in this signification. In modern 
Latinity (as, in Milton Contra Salmasium, Cap. VIII.), and in most of the 
vulgar languages, the expression in this meaning is so familiar, that it 
would be idle to adduce examples. Sir James Mackintosh, Disseiiations, 
&c, p. 387 of the collected edition, imagines, indeed, that this is the only 
meaning of common sense ; and on this ground censures Reid for the adop- 
tion of the term ; and even Mr. Stewart's objections to it seem to proceed 
on the supposition, that this is the proper or more accredited signification. 
See Elements, Part II. Chap. I. Sect. II. ; and Life of Reid, Sect. II. This 
is wrong; but Reid himself, it must be acknowledged, does not sufficiently 
distinguish between this and the last-mentioned acceptation ; as may be 
seen from the tenor of his chapter on Common Sense, but especially from 
the concluding chapter of the Inquiry. ." 

Again, when common sense is used with emphasis on the substantive and 
not on the adjective, it often, in popular langi age. " expresses native prac- 

31 



362 JUDGMENT. 

III. Relation of Reason and Common Sense to each 
other.] It is absurd to conceive that there can be any 
opposition between reason and common sense. It is, 
indeed, the first-born of reason, and, as they are com- 
monly joined together in speech and in writing, they 
are inseparable in their nature. 

We ascribe to reason two offices, or two degrees. 
The first is to judge of things self-evident ; the second 
to draw conclusions that are not self-evident from those 
that are. The first of these is the province, and the 
sole province, of common sense ; and therefore it co- 
incides with reason in its whole extent, and is only 
another name for one branch or one degree of reason. 
Perhaps it may be said, Why, then, should you give it 
a particular name, since it is acknowledged to be only 
a degree of reason ? It would be a sufficient answer to 
this, Why do you abolish a name which is to be found 
in the language of all civilized nations, and has ac- 
quired a right by prescription ? Such an attempt is 
equally foolish and ineffectual. Every wise man will 
be apt to think, that a name which is found in all lan- 
guages as far back as we can trace them, is not without 
some use. 

But there is an obvious reason why this degree of 
reason should have a name appropriated to it; and that 
is, that in the greatest part of mankind no other degree 
of reason is to be found. It is this degree that entitles 
them to the denomination of reasonable creatures. It 
is this degree of reason, and this only, that makes a 
man capable of managing his own affairs, and answer- 
able for his conduct towards others. There is, there- 
fore, the best reason why it should have a name appro- 
priated to it. 

tical intelligence, natural prudence, mother wit, tact in behaviour, acuteness in the 
observation of character, SfC, in contrast to habits of acquired learning, or of 
speculation away from the affairs of life. I recollect no unambiguous exam- 
ples of the phrase, in this precise acceptation, in any ancient author. In 
modern languages, and more particularly in French and English, it is of 
ordinary occurrence. Thus, Voltaire's saying, ' Le sens commun n'est 
pas si commun ' ; — which, I may notice, was stolen from Buffier, Meta- 
physique, § 69." — Ed. 



OF COMMON SENSE. 363 

These two degrees of reason differ in other respects, 
which would be sufficient to entitle them to distinct 
names. 

The first is purely the gift of Heaven. And where 
Heaven has not given it, no education can supply the 
want. The second is learned by practice and rides, 
when the first is not wanting. A man who has com- 
mon sense may be taught to reason. But if he has not 
that gift, no teaching will make him able either to 
judge of first principles or to reason from them. 

I have only this further to observe, that the province 
of common sense is more extensive in refutation than in 
confirmation. A conclusion drawn by a train of just 
reasoning from true principles cannot possibly contra- 
dict any decision of common sense, because truth will 
always be consistent with itself. Neither can such a 
conclusion receive any confirmation from common 
sense, because it is not within its jurisdiction. 

But it is possible, that, by setting out from false prin- 
ciples, or by an error in reasoning, a man may be led 
to a conclusion that contradicts the decisions of com- 
mon sense. In this case, the conclusion is within the 
jurisdiction of common sense, though the reasoning 
on which it was grounded be not ; and a man of com- 
mon sense may fairly reject the conclusion, without 
being able to show the error of the reasoning that led 
to it. Thus, if a mathematician, by a process of in- 
tricate demonstration, in which some false step was 
made, should be brought to this conclusion, that two 
quantities, which are equal to a third, are not equal to 
each other, a man of common sense, without pretend- 
ing to be a judge of the demonstration, is well entitled 
to reject the conclusion, and to pronounce it absurd.* 



* In Jouffroy's M&langes Philosophiques there is an article, De la Philoso- 
phic, et du Sens Commun (translated by Mr. Ripley, in bis Philosophical 
Miscellanies, Vol. I. p. 305 et seq.), in which he marks with some distinct- 
ness their relation to each other. 

" Before their accession to philosophy, philosophers, in their capacity as 
men, bore within tliem the light of common sense ; they made use of it in 
their judgments and in their conduct; and whatever may be the result of 
their scientific labors, it is not perceived that they renounce common sense 



364 JUDGMENT. 

CHAPTER III. 

OF FIRST PRINCIPLES IN GENERAL. 

I. Nature, Necessity, and Use of First Principles.] 
One of the most important distinctions of our judg- 
ments is, that some of them are intuitive, others ground- 
ed on argument. 

It is not in our power to judge as we will. The 
judgment is carried along necessarily by the evidence, 
real or seeming, which appears to us at the time. But 
in propositions- that are submitted to our judgment 

in the ordinary affairs of life, or that they are any more converted to their 
own doctrines than the great mass of mankind. They avow in practice, 
not only the existence, but the superiority, of the solutions of common 
sense. What, then, do they seek 1 What is the purpose of their endeav- 
ours 1 Let us attempt to explain it. 

" The solutions of common sense are not established in any explicit man- 
ner, and in a positive form, in the human mind. Ask the first man you 
meet, what idea he has formed of the Good, or what he thinks concerning 
the nature of things ; — he will not know what you say. If you attempt 
to explain to him the meaning of those two questions, at least unless you 
use all the skill of Socrates, he will find it hard to comprehend you. But 
undertake to call in question, with the Stoics, that pleasure is a good, or to 
deny, with the spiritualists, the existence of matter; — you will see him 
laugh at your folly, and exhibit the most unconquerable conviction with 
regard to those two points. It will be the same with every other question. 
Common sense, therefore, is an opinion of undoubted reality; but men are 
governed by it almost unconsciously ; its existence is proved by the single 
fact, that they judge and act as if they possessed it. Taken as a whole, it 
is obscure ; no one can give account of it ; but when a particular case 
occurs, it is manifested at once by a clear and positive application ; it then 
returns into the shade. It is perceived in every judgment, in every deter- 
mination ; but, except in its application, it is as if it were not ; and it is 
precisely this obscurity which makes it insufficient for thinking men. Reflection 
cannot be satisfied with this species of inspiration, the characteristic of 
which is to be ignorant of itself, and to be satisfied with this igno- 
rance. The elite of humanity is not satisfied with these obscure glimpses, 
these vague persuasions : it seeks to comprehend what every body believes ; 
it wishes to obtain clear solutions of the great questions that concern 
man ; and with it commences philosophy. To philosophize is to com- 
prehend ; to comprehend is not to know, but to verify what we knew be- 
fore. How could we wish to comprehend, if we were ignorant of what 
we wished to comprehend ? " 

To the same effect, but more pointedly, Sir W. Hamilton, Note A. § 3 : 
— " Nor is it true, that the argument from common sense denies the decision 
to the judgment of philosophers, and accords it to the verdict of the vul- 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 365 

there is this great difference ; some are of such a nature 
that a man of ripe understanding may apprehend them 
distinctly, and perfectly understand their meaning with- 
out finding himself under any necessity of believing 
them to be true or false, probable or improbable. The 
judgment remains in suspense, until it is inclined to 
one side or another by reasons or arguments. 

But there are other propositions which are no sooner 
understood than they are believed. The judgment fol- 
lows the apprehension of them necessarily, and both 
are equally the work of nature, and the result of our 
original powers. There is no searching for evidence, 
no weighing of arguments ; the proposition is not de- 
duced or inferred from another ; it has the light of truth 

gar. Nothing can be more erroneous. We admit, nay, we maintain, as 
D'Alembert well expresses it, that ' the truth in metaphysics, like the truth 
in matters of taste, is a truth of which all minds have the germ within 
themselves ; to which, indeed, the greater number pay no attention, but 
which they can recognize the moment it is pointed out to them. But if, 
in this sort, we are able to understand, all are not able to instruct. The 
merit of conveying easily to others true and simple notions is much greater 
than is commonly supposed ; for experience proves how rarely this is to 
be met with. Sound metaphysical ideas are common truths, which every 
one apprehends, but which few have the talent to develop. So difficult is 
it on any subject to make our own what belongs to every one.' Melanges, 
Tome IV. § 6. Or, to employ the words of the ingenious Lichtenberg, — 
' Philosophy, twist the matter as we may. is always a sort of chemistry 
(Scheidekunst). The peasant employs all the principles of abstract phi- 
losophy, only inveloped, latent, engaged, as the men of physical science 
express it ; the philosopher exhibits the pure principle.' Hinterlassene 
Schriflen, Vol. II. p. 67. 

'• It must be recollected, also, that, in appealing to the consciousness of 
mankind in general, we only appeal to the consciousness of those not dis- 
qualified to pronounce a decision. ' In saying (to use the words of Aris- 
totle) simply and without qualification, that this or that is a known truth, 
we do not mean that it is in fact recognized by all, but only by such as are 
of a sound understanding ; just as, in saying absolutely that a thing is whole- 
some, we must be held to mean, to such as are of a hale constitution.' 
Top., Lib. VI. Cap. IV. § 7. — We may, in short, say of the true philoso- 
pher what Erasmus, in an epistle to Hutton, said of Sir Thomas More: — 
'Nemo minus ducitur vulgi judicio; sed rursus nemo minus abest a sensu 
communi.' " See also the Appendix to this volume. 

Compare Beattie's Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, Part 
I. Chap. II. ; Oswald's Appeal to Common Sense, Vol. I. passim ; Priestley's 
Examination of Dr. ReicTs Inquiry, &c. ; Cogan's Ethical Questions, Specu- 
lation V. ; Galluppi, Lettere Filosofiche (translated into French by M. 
Peisse, Lettres Philosophiques, Paris, 1844), Let. XL; Blackwood's Mag- 
azine for August. 1847. — Ed. 

31* 



366 JUDGMENT. 

in itself, and has no occasion to borrow it from an- 
other. 

Propositions of the last kind, when they are used in 
matters of science, have commonly been called axioms ; 
and, on whatever occasion they are used, are called first 
principles, principles of common sense, common notions, 
self-evident truths. Cicero calls them natures judicia, 
judicia communibus hominum sensibus infixa. Lord 
Shaftesbury expresses them by the words, natural 
knowledge, fundamental reason, and common sense* 

* For the nomenclature of first principles, see Sir W. Hamilton's Note 
A, § 5. His remarks on two or three of the appellations which have re- 
cently grown into favor are here given. 

" 1 . Instinctive belief's, cognitions, judgments, &c. 

" Priestley (Examination, &c, passim) has attempted to ridicule Reid's 
use of the terms instinct and instinctive, in this relation, as an innovation, 
not only in philosophy, but in language ; and Sir James Mackintosh (Dis- 
sertations, p. 388) considers the term instinct not less improper than the 
term common sense- As to the impropriety, though, like most other psy- 
chological terms, these are not unexceptionable, they are, however, less so 
than many, nay, than most, others. An instinct is an agent which performs 
blindly and ignorantly a work of intelligence and knowledge. The terms 
instinctive belief, instinctive judgment, instinctive cognition, are therefore ex- 
pressions not ill adapted to characterize a belief, judgment, cognition, 
which, as the result of no anterior consciousness, is, like the products of 
animal instinct, the intelligent effect of (as far as we are concerned) an 
unknown cause. In like manner, we can hardly find more suitable ex- 
pressions to indicate those incomprehensible spontaneities themselves, of 
which the primary facts of consciousness are the manifestations, than 
rational or intellectual instincts. In fact, if reason can justly be called a de- 
veloped feeling, it may, with no less propriety, be called an illuminated in- 
stinct; — in the words of Ovid, 

' Et quod nunc ratio, impetus ante fuit.' 

As to an innovation either in language or philosophy, this objection only 
betrays the ignorance of the objector. Mr. Stewart (Essays, Ess. II, 
Chap. II.) adduces Boscovich and D'Alembert as authorities for the em- 
ployment of the terms instinct and instinctive in Reid's signification. But, 
before Reid, he might have found them thus applied by Cicero, Scaliger, 
Bacon, Herbert, Descartes, Rapin, Pascal, Poiret, Barrow, Leibnitz, Mn 
saeus, Feuerlin, Hume, Bayer, Karnes, Reimarus, and a host of others 
while subsequent to the Inquiry into the Human Mind, besides Beattie, Os 
wald, Campbell, Ferguson, among our Scottish philosophers, we have 
with Hemsterhuis in Holland, in Germany Tetens, Jacobi, Bouterwek, 
Neeb, Koppen, Ancillon, and many other metaphysicians who have adopted 
and defended the expressions. 

" 2. A priori trutfis, principles, cognitions, notions, judgments, &c. 

" The term a priori, by the influence of Kant and his school, is now very 
generally employed to characterize those elements of knowledge which are 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 367 

I hold it to be certain, and even demonstrable, that 
all knowledge got by reasoning must be built upon first 
principles. 

This is as certain as that every house must have a 
foundation. The power of reasoning, in this respect, 
resembles the mechanical powers or engines ; it must 
have a fixed point to rest upon, otherwise it spends its 
force in the air, and produces no effect. 

When we examine, in the way of analysis, the evi- 
dence of any proposition, either we find it self-evident, 

not obtained a posteriori, — are not evolved out of experience as factitious 
generalizations ; but which are native to, are potentially in, the mind ante- 
cedent to the act of experience, on occasion of which (as constituting its 
subjective conditions) they are first actually elicited into consciousness. 
These, like many, indeed most others of his technical expressions, are old 
words applied in a new signification. Previously to Kant, the terms a 
priori and a posteriori were, in a sense which descended from Aristotle, 
properly and usually employed, the former to denote a reasoning from 
cause to effect, the latter, a reasoning from effect to cause. The term a 
priori came, however, in modern times, to be extended to any abstract 
reasoning from a given notion to the conditions which such notion in 
volved ; hence, for example, the title a priori bestowed on the ontological 
and cosmological arguments for the existence of the Deity. The latter of 
these, in fact, starts from experience, — from the observed contingency of 
the world, — in order to construct the supposed notion on which it founds. 
Clarke's cosmological demonstration, called a priori, is therefore, so far, 
properly an argument a posteriori. 

" 3. Transcendental truths, principles, cognitions, judgments, &c. 

" In the schools, transcendentalis and transcendens were convertible ex- 
pressions, employed to mark a term or notion which transcended, that is, 
which rose above, and thus contained under it, the categories, or summa 
genera, of Aristotle. Such, for example, is being, of which the ten cate- 
gories are only subdivisions. Kant, according to his wont, twisted these 
old terms into a new signification. First of all, he distinguished them 
from each other. Transcendent (transcendens) he employed to denote what 
is wholly beyond experience, being given neither as an a posteriori nor a 
priori element of cognition, — what, therefore, transcends every category 
of thought. Transcendental (transcendentalis) he applied to signify the a 
priori or necessary cognitions, which, though manifested in, as affording 
the conditions of, experience, transcend the sphere of that contingent or 
adventitious knowledge which we acquire by experience. Transcendental 
is not, therefore, what transcends, but what in feet constitutes, a category 
of thought. This term, though probably from another quarter, has found 
favor with Mr. Stewart; who proposes to exchange the expression prin- 
ciples of common sense, for, among other names, that of transcendental 
truths." 

The designation by which Mr. Stewart prefers, on the whole, to dis- 
tinguish primary truths is either fundamental laws of human belief or pri- 
mary elements of human reason. Elements, Part II. Chap. I. — Ed. 



368 JUDGMENT. 

or it rests upon one or more propositions that support 
it. The same thing may be said of the propositions 
that support it ; and of those that support them, as far 
back as we can go. But we cannot go back in this 
track to infinity. Where, then, must this analysis 
stop ? It is evident that it must stop only when we 
come to propositions which support all that are built 
upon them, but are themselves supported by none, that 
is, to self-evident propositions. 

Let us next consider a synthetical proof of any kind, 
where we begin with the premises, and pursue a train 
of consequences, until we come to the last conclusion, 
or thing to be proved. Here we must begin, either 
with self-evident propositions, or with such as have 
been already proved. When the last is the case, the 
proof of the propositions thus assumed is a part of 
our proof; and the proof is deficient without it. Sup- 
pose, then, the deficiency supplied, and the proof com- 
pleted, is it not evident that it must set out with self- 
evident propositions, and that the whole evidence must 
rest upon them ? So that it appears to be demonstra- 
ble, that, ivithout first principles, analytical reasoning 
could have no end, and synthetical reasoning could have 
no beginning ; and that every conclusion got by reason- 
ing must rest with its whole weight upon first princi- 
ples, as the building does upon its foundation. 

It would doubtless contribute greatly to the stabil- 
ity of human knowledge, and consequently to the im- 
provement of it, if the first principles upon which the 
various parts of it are grounded were pointed out and 
ascertained. 

We have ground to think so from facts, as well as 
from the nature of the thing. There are two branches 
of human knowledge in which this method has been 
followed, — to wit, mathematics and natural philoso- 
phy : in mathematics, as far back as we have books. 
It is in this science only, that, for more than two thou- 
sand years since it began to be cultivated, we find no 
sects, no contrary systems, and hardly any disputes ; 
or, if there have been disputes, they have ended as soon 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 369 

as the animosity of parties subsided, and have never 
been again revived. The science, once firmly estab- 
lished upon the foundation of a few axioms and defi- 
nitions, as upon a rock, has grown from age to age, so 
as to become the loftiest and the most solid fabric that 
human reason can boast. 

Natural philosophy, till less than two hundred years 
ago, remained in the same fluctuating state with the 
other sciences. Every new system pulled up the old 
by the roots. The system-builders, indeed, were always 
willing to accept of the aid of first principles, when 
they were of their side ; but finding them insufficient 
to support the fabric which their imagination had 
raised, they were only brought in as auxiliaries, and so 
intermixed with conjectures and with lame inductions, 
that their systems were like Nebuchadnezzar's image, 
whose feet were partly of iron and partly of clay. 

Lord Bacon first delineated the only solid founda- 
tion on which natural philosophy can be built : and 
Sir Isaac Newton reduced the principles laid down by 
Bacon into three or four axioms, which he calls regular 
philosophandi. From these, together with the phenom- 
ena observed by the senses, which he likewise lays 
down as first principles, he deduces, by strict reasoning, 
the propositions contained in the third book of his 
Principia, and in his Optics; and by this means has 
raised a fabric in those two branches of natural philoso- 
phy, which is not liable to be shaken by doubtful dis- 
putation, but stands immovable upon the basis of self- 
evident principles.* 

We may observe, by the way, that the reason why 
logicians have been so unanimous in determining the 
rules of reasoning', from Aristotle down to this day, 
seems to be, that they were by that great genius raised, 
in a scientific manner, from a few definitions and 
axioms. It may further be observed, that when men 
differ about a deduction, whether it follows from cer- 
tain premises, this I think is always owing to their dif- 

* Compare Stewart's Elements, Part II. Chap. I. 



370 JUDGMENT. 

fering about some first principle. I shall explain this 
by an example. Suppose that, from a thing having 
begun to exist, one man infers that it must have had a 
cause ; another man does not admit the inference. 
Here it is evident that the first takes it for a self-evident 
principle, that every thing which begins to exist must 
have a cause. The other does not allow this to be self- 
evident. Let them settle this point, and the dispute 
will be at an end. 

Thus I think it appears, that in matters of science, if 
the terms be properly explained, the first principles 
upon which the reasoning is grounded be laid down 
and exposed to examination, and the conclusions regu- 
larly deduced from them, it might be expected that men 
of candor and capacity, who love truth, and have pa- 
tience to examine things coolly, might come to una- 
nimity with regard to the force of the deductions, and 
that their differences might be reduced to those they 
may have about first principles. 

II. Means of determining what ought to be admitted 
as First Principles.] We are next to consider whether 
nature has left us destitute of means whereby the candid 
and honest part of mankind may be brought to unanimity 
iv hen they happen to differ about first principles. . 

When men differ about things that are taken to be 
first principles, or self-evident truths, reasoning seems 
to be at an end. Each party appeals to common 
sense ; and if one man's common sense gives one de- 
termination, another man's a contrary determination, 
there would seem, at first sight, to be no remedy but to 
leave every man to enjoy his own opinion. It is in 
vain to reason with a man who denies the first princi- 
ples on which the reasoning is grounded. Thus, it 
would be in vain to attempt the proof of a proposition 
in Euclid to a man who denies the axioms. Indeed, 
we ought never to reason with men who deny first 
principles from obstinacy and unwillingness to yield to 
reason. 

But is it not possible, that men who really love truth, 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 371 

and are open to conviction, may differ about first princi- 
ples ? 

I think it is possible, and that it cannot, without 
great want of charity, be denied to be possible. 

When this happens, every man who believes that 
there is a real distinction between truth and error, and 
that the faculties which God has given us are not in 
their nature fallacious, must be convinced that there is 
a defect, or a perversion of judgment, on the one side or 
the other. A man of candor and humility will, in such 
a case, very naturally suspect his own judgment, so far 
as to be desirous to enter into a serious examination 
even of what he has long held as a first principle. He 
will think it not impossible that, although his heart be 
upright, his judgment may have been perverted, by 
education, by authority, by party zeal, or by some other 
of the common causes of error, from the influence of 
which neither parts nor integrity exempt the human 
understanding. 

In such a state of mind, so amiable, and so becom- 
ing every good man, has nature left him destitute of 
any rational means by which he may be enabled, either 
to correct his judgment if it be wrong, or to confirm it 
if it be right ? 

I hope it is not so. I hope that, by the means which 
nature has furnished, controversies about first principles 
may be brought to an issue, and that the real lovers of 
truth may come to unanimity with regard to them. It 
is true, that, in other controversies, the process by which 
the truth of a proposition is discovered, or its falsehood 
detected, is by showing its necessary connection with 
first principles, or its repugnancy to them. It is true, 
likewise, that, when the controversy is whether a propo 
sition be itself a first principle, this process cannot be 
applied. The truth, therefore, in controversies of this 
kind, labors under a peculiar disadvantage. But it has 
advantages of another kind to compensate this. 

For, in the first place, in such controversies, every 
man is a competent judge ; and therefore it is difficult to 
impose upon mankind. # 



372 JUDGMENT. 

To judge of first principles requires no more than a 
sound mind free from prejudice, and a distinct concep- 
tion of the question. The learned and the unlearned, 
the philosopher and the day-laborer, are upon a level, 
and will pass the same judgment, when they are not 
misled by some bias, or taught to renounce their under- 
standing from some mistaken religious principle. 

In matters beyond the reach of common understand- 
ing, the many are led by the few, and willingly yield to 
their authority. But in matters of common sense, the 
few must yield to the many, when local and temporary 
prejudices are removed. No man is now moved by the 
subtile arguments of Zeno against motion, though per- 
haps he knows not how to answer them. 

The ancient skeptical system furnishes a remarkable 
instance of this truth. That system, of which Pyrrho 
was reputed the father, was carried down, through a 
succession of ages, by very able and acute philosophers, 
who taught men to believe nothing at all, and esteemed 
it the highest pitch of human wisdom to withhold as- 
sent from every proposition whatsoever. It was sup- 
ported with very great subtilty and learning, as we see 
from the writings of Sextus Empiricus, the only author 
of that sect whose writings have come down to our 
age. 

Yet, as this system was an insult upon the common 
sense of mankind, it died away of itself; and it would 
be in vain to attempt to revive it. The modern skep- 
ticism, I mean that of Mr. Hume, is very different from 
the ancient, otherwise it would not have been allowed 
a hearing ; and, when it has lost the grace of novelty, 
it will die away also, though it should never be re- 
futed. 

Secondly, we may observe, that opinions which con- 
tradict first principles are distinguished from other er- 
rors by this, — that they are not only false, but absurd; 
and, to discountenance absurdity, nature has given us 
a particular emotion, ■ — to wit, that of ridicule, — which 
seems intended for this very purpose of putting out of 
countenance what is absurd, either in opinion or prac- 
tice. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 373 

This weapon, when properly applied, cuts with as 
keen an edge as argument. Nature has furnished us 
with the first to expose absurdity, as with the last to 
refute error. Both are well fitted for their several 
offices, and are equally friendly to truth, when properly 
used. Both may be abused to serve the cause of error ; 
but the same degree of judgment which serves to detect 
the abuse of argument in false reasoning, serves to de- 
tect the abuse of ridicule when it is wrongly directed. 
Some have from nature a happier talent for ridicule 
than others ; and the same thing holds with regard to 
the talent of reasoning. But it must be acknowledged, 
that the emotion of ridicule, even when most natural, 
may be stifled by an emotion of a contrary nature, and 
cannot operate till that is removed. Thus, if the notion 
of sanctity is annexed to an object, it is no longer a 
laughable matter ; and this visor must be pulled off be- 
fore it appears ridiculous. Hence we see, that notions 
which appear most ridiculous to all who consider them 
coolly and indifferently have no such appearance to 
those who never thought of them but under the impres- 
sion of religious awe and dread. And even where re- 
ligion is not concerned, the novelty of an opinion to 
those who are too fond of novelties ; the gravity and 
solemnity with which it is introduced ; the opinion we 
have entertained of the author ; its apparent connection 
with principles already embraced, or subserviency to 
interests which we have at heart ; and, above all, its 
being fixed in our minds at that time of life when we 
receive implicitly what we are taught, — may cover its 
absurdity, and fascinate the understanding for a time. 

But if ever we are able to view it naked, and stripped 
of those adventitious circumstances from which it bor- 
rowed its importance and authority, the natural emotion 
of ridicule will exert its force. An absurdity can be en- 
tertained by men of sense no longer than it wears a 
mask. When any man is found who has the skill or 
the boldness to pull off the mask, it can no longer bear 
the light ; it slinks into dark corners for a while, and 
then is no more heard of but as an object of ridicule. 
32 



374 JUDGMENT. 

Thus I conceive that first principles, which are really 
the dictates of common sense, and directly opposed to 
absurdities in opinion, will always, from the constitu- 
tion of human nature, support themselves, and gain 
rather than lose ground among mankind. 

It may be observed, thirdly, that although it is con- 
trary to the nature of first principles to admit of direct 
or apodictical proof; yet there are certain ways of rea- 
soning' even about them, by which those that are just 
and solid may be confirmed, and those that are false may 
be detected. 

It may here be proper to mention some of the topics 
from which we may reason in matters of this kind. 

First. It is a good argument ad hominem, if it can 
be shown, that a first principle which a man rejects 
stands upon the same footing with others which he 
admits ; for, when this is the case, he must be guilty 
of an inconsistency who holds the one and rejects the 
other. 

Thus the faculties of consciousness, of memory, of 
external sense, and of reason, are all equally the gifts 
of nature. No good reason can be assigned for receiv- 
ing the testimony of one of them, which is not of equal 
force with regard to the others. The greatest skeptics 
admit the testimony of consciousness, and allow that 
what it testifies is to be held as a first principle. If, 
therefore, they reject the immediate testimony of sense, 
or of memory, they are guilty of an inconsistency. 

Secondly. A first principle may admit of a proof ad 
absurdum. 

In this kind of proof, which is very common in 
mathematics, we suppose the contradictory proposition 
to be true. We trace the consequences of that suppo- 
sition in a train of reasoning ; and if we find any of its 
necessary consequences to be manifestly absurd, we 
conclude the supposition from which it followed to be 
false ; and therefore its contradictory to be true. There 
is hardly any proposition, especially of those that may 
claim the character of first principles, that stands alone 
and unconnected. It draws many others along with it 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 375 

in a chain that cannot be broken. He that takes it up 
must bear the burden of all its consequences ; and if 
that is too heavy for him to bear, he must not pretend 
to take it up. 

Thirdly. I conceive that the consent of ages and na- 
tions, of the learned and unlearned, ought to have great 
authority with regard to first principles, where every 
man is a competent judge. 

Our ordinary conduct in life is built upon first prin- 
ciples, as well as our speculations in philosophy, and 
every motive to action supposes some belief. When 
we find a general agreement among men in principles 
that concern human life, this must have great authority 
with every sober mind that loves truth. Still, it will be 
said, What has authority to do in matters of opinion ? 
Is truth to be determined by most votes ? Or is au- 
thority to be again raised out of its grave to tyrannize 
over mankind ? 

Authority, though a very tyrannical mistress to pri- 
vate judgment, may yet, on some occasions, be a useful 
handmaid ; this is all she is entitled to, and this is all 
I plead in her behalf. The justice of this plea will 
appear by putting a case in a science, in which, of 
all sciences, authority is acknowledged to have least 
weight. 

Suppose a mathematician has made a discovery in 
that science, which he thinks important ; that he has 
put his demonstration in just order ; and, after examin- 
ing it with an attentive eye, has found no flaw in it. I 
would ask, Will there not be still in his breast some 
diffidence, some jealousy lest the ardor of invention 
may have made him overlook some false step ? This 
must be granted. He commits his demonstration to 
the examination of a mathematical friend, whom he es- 
teems a competent judge, and waits with impatience 
the issue of his judgment. Here I would ask again, 
whether the verdict of his friend, according as it is 
favorable or unfavorable, will not greatly increase or 
diminish his confidence in his own judgment. Most 
certainly it will, and it ought. If the judgment of his 



376 JUDGMENT. 

friend agree with his own, especially if it be confirmed 
by two or three able judges, he rests secure of his dis- 
covery without further examination ; but if it be unfa- 
vorable, he is brought back into a kind of suspense, 
until the part that is suspected undergoes a new and a 
more rigorous examination. 

I hope what is supposed in this case is agreeable to 
nature, and to the experience of candid and modest 
men on such occasions ; yet here we see a man's judg- 
ment, even in a mathematical demonstration, conscious 
of some feebleness in itself, seeking the aid of authority 
to support it, greatly strengthened by that authority, 
and hardly able to stand erect against it, without some 
new aid. 

Now, in a matter of common sense, every man is no 
less a competent judge, than a mathematician is in a 
mathematical demonstration ; and there must be a 
great presumption that the judgment of mankind, in 
such a matter, is the natural issue of those faculties 
which God has given them. Such a judgment can be 
erroneous only when there is some cause of the error, 
as general as the error is. When this can be shown to 
be the case, I acknowledge it ought to have its due 
weight. But to suppose a general deviation from truth 
among mankind in things self-evident, of which no 
cause can be assigned, is highly unreasonable. 

Perhaps it may be thought impossible to collect the 
general opinion of men upon any point whatsoever ; 
and, therefore, that this authority can serve us in no 
stead in examining first principles. But I apprehend, 
that, in many cases, this is neither impossible nor diffi- 
cult. 

Who can doubt whether men have universally be- 
lieved the existence of a material world ? Who can 
doubt whether men have universally believed, that every 
change that happens in nature must have a cause ? 
Who can doubt whether men have universally believed 
that there is a right and a wrong in human conduct, — 
some things that merit blame, and others that are en- 
titled to approbation ? The universality of these opin- 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 377 

ions, and of many such that might be named, is suf- 
ficiently evident, from the whole tenor of human con- 
duct, as far as our acquaintance reaches, and from the 
history of all ages and nations of which we have any 
records. 

There are other opinions that appear to be universal, 
from what is common in the structure of all languages. 
Language is the express image and picture of human 
thoughts ; and from the picture we may draw some 
certain conclusions concerning the original. We find 
in all languages the same parts of speech ; we find 
nouns, substantive and adjective ; verbs, active and 
passive, in their various tenses, numbers, and moods. 
Some rules of syntax are the same in all languages. 

Now, what is common in the structure of languages 
indicates a uniformity of opinion in those things upon 
which that structure is grounded. The distinction be- 
tween substances and the qualities belonging to them, 
between thought and the being that thinks, between 
thought and the objects of thought, is to be found in 
the structure of all languages ; and therefore systems 
of philosophy, which abolish those distinctions, wage 
war with the common sense of mankind. 

We are apt to imagine, that those who formed lan- 
guages were no metaphysicians ; but the first principles 
of all sciences are the dictates of common sense, and 
lie open to all men ; and every man, who has con- 
sidered the structure of language in a philosophical 
light, will find infallible proofs that those who have 
framed it, and those who use it with understanding, 
have the power of making accurate distinctions, and of 
forming general conceptions, as well as philosophers. 
Nature has given those powers to all men, and they 
can use them when their occasions require it ; but they 
leave it to the philosophers to give names to them, and 
to descant upon their nature. In like manner, nature 
has given eyes to all men, and they can make good 
use of them ; but the structure of the eye, and the 
theory of vision, are the business of philosophers. 

Fourthly. Opinions that appear so early in the minds 
32* 



378 JUDGMENT. 

of men, that they cannot be the effect of education, or of 
false reasoning, have a good claim to be considered as 
first principles. Thus the belief we have, that the per- 
sons about us are living and intelligent beings, is a 
belief for which, perhaps, we can give some reason, 
when we are able to reason ; but we had this belief 
before we could reason, and before we could learn it by 
instruction. It seems, therefore, to be an immediate 
effect of our constitution. 
i Fifthly. The last topic I shall mention is, when an 
opinion is so necessary in the conduct of life, that, with- 
j out the belief of it, a man must be led into a thousand 
absurdities in practice, such an opinion, when we can 
give no other reason for it, may safely be taken for a 
first principle. 

Thus I have endeavoured to show, that, although 
first principles are not capable of direct proof, yet dif- 
ferences that may happen with regard to them among 
men of candor are not without remedy ; that nature has 
not left us destitute of means by which we may dis- 
cover errors of this kind ; and that there are ways of 
reasoning, with regard to first principles, by which 
those that are truly such may be distinguished from 
vulgar errors or prejudices* 

* On the means of discriminating and determining first principles, which 
is one of the most difficult points in the philosophy of common sense, Sir 
W. Hamilton, in Note A, § 4, expresses himself thus : — " These charac- 
ters, I think, may be reduced to four: — 1°, their incomprehensibility; 2°, 
their simplicity ; 3°, their necessity and absolute universality ; 4°, their com- 
parative evidence and certainty. 

" 1 . In reference to the first ; — a conviction is incomprehensible when 
there is merely given us in consciousness That its object is (on eari) ; 
and when we are unable to comprehend through a higher notion or belief, 
WJiy, or How it is (Stdrt eari) • When we are able to comprehend why 
or how a thing is, the belief of the existence of that thing is not a primary 
datum of consciousness, but a subsumption under the cognition or belief 
which affords its reason. 

" 2. As to the second ; — it is manifest, if a cognition or belief be made 
up of, and can be explicated into, a plurality of cognitions or beliefs, that, 
as a compound, it cannot be original. 

" 3. Touching the third ; — necessity and universality may be regarded 
as coincident. For when a belief is necessary, it is, eo ipso, universal ; and 
that a belief is universal is a certain index that it must be necessary. See 
Leibnitz, Nouveaux Essais, Lib. I. $ 4. To prove the necessity, the uni- 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 379 

III. Enumeration of the First Principles of Contin- 
gent Truths.] • The truths that fall within the compass 
of human knowledge, whether they be self-evident, or 
deduced from those that are self-evident, may be re- 



versality must, however, be absolute ; for a relative universality indicates 
no more than custom and education, howbeit the subjects themselves may 
deem that they follow only the dictates of nature. As St. Jerome has it, 
— Unaquceque gens hoc legem naturoz putat, quod didicit. 

"It is to be observed that the necessity here spoken of is of two kinds. 
There is one necessity, when we cannot construe it to our minds as pos- 
sible, that the deliverance of consciousness should not be true. This log- 
ical impossibility occurs in the case of what are called necessaiy truths, — 
truths of reason or intelligence ; as in the law of causality, the law of substance, 
and still more in the laws of identity, contradiction, and excluded middle. 
There is another necessity, when it is not unthinkable that the deliverance 
of consciousness may possibly be false, but, at the same time, when we 
cannot but admit that this deliverance is of such or such a purport. This 
is seen in the case of what are called contingent truths, or truths of fact. 
Thus, for example, I can theoretically suppose that the external object I 
am conscious of in perception may be, in reality, nothing but a mode of 
mind or self. I am unable, however, to think that it does not appear to 
me — that consciousness does not compel me to regard it — as a mode of 
matter or not-self. And such being the case, I cannot practically believe 
the supposition I am able speculatively to maintain. For I cannot believe 
this supposition without believing that the last ground of all belief is not 
to be believed ; which is self-contradictory. ' Nature,' says Pascal, ' con- 
founds the Pyrrhonist ' ; and, among similar confessions, those of Hume, 
of Pichte, of Hommel, may suffice for an acknowledgment of the impos- 
sibility which the skeptic, the idealist, the fatalist, finds in practically be- 
lieving the scheme which he views as theoretically demonstrated. 

" 4. The fourth and last character of our original beliefs is their com- 
parative evidence and certainty. This, along with the third, is well stated 
by Aristotle, — ' What appears to all, that we affirm to be ; and he who 
rejects this belief will assuredly advance nothing better deserving of credence? 
And again : — ' If we know and believe through certain original princi- 
ples, we must know and believe these with paramount certainty, for the 
very reason that we know and believe all else through them.' And such 
are the truths in regard to which the Aphrodisian says, — ' Though some 
men may verbally dissent, all men are in their hearts agreed.' This con- 
stitutes the first of Buffier's essential qualities of primary truths, which is, 
as he expresses it, ' to be so clear, that, if we attempt to prove or to dis- 
prove them, this can be done only by propositions which are manifestly 
neither more evident nor more certain.' 1 " 

Compare Buffier's First Truths, Part I. Chap. VII. ; Stewart's Elements, 
Part II. Chap. I; Coleridge's Aids to Reflection, comment on the eighth 
of his Aphorisms on Spiritual Religion ; Jacques, Sur le Sens Commun, 
comme Principe et comme Mdthode PMlosopliique, passim, published in Mem. 
de I' Acad. Royale des Sciences Mor. et Pol., Tome I., Savants Etrangers ; 
Whewell's Philosojihy of the Inductive Sciences, Part I. Book I. ; Mill's 
System of Logic, Book II. Chap. V. Most of these authorities treat ex- 
clusively of the first principles of necessary truths. — Ed. 



380 



JUDGMENT. 



duced to two classes. They are either necessary and 
immutable truths, whose contrary is impossible ; or they 
are contingent and mutable, depending upon some effect 
of will and power, which had a beginning, and may 
have an end. 

That a cone is the third part of a cylinder of the 
same base and the same altitude, is a necessary truth. 
It depends not upon the will and power of any being. 
It is immutably true, and the contrary impossible. That 
the sun is the centre, about which the earth, and the 
other planets of our system, perform their revolutions, 
is a truth ; but it is not a necessary truth. It depends 
upon the power and will of that Being who made the 
sun and all the planets, and who gave them those 
motions that seemed best to him. 

As the minds of men are occupied much more about 
truths that are contingent than about those that are 
necessary, I shall first endeavour to point out the prin- 
ciples of the former kind. If the enumeration should 
appear to some redundant, to others deficient, and to 
others both ; if things which I conceive to be first prin- 
ciples should to others appear to be vulgar errors, or to 
be truths which derive their evidence from other truths, 
and therefore not first principles ; in these things every 
man must judge for himself. 

1. First, then, I hold, as a first principle, the existence 
of every thing of which I am conscious. 

Consciousness is an operation of the understanding 
of its own kind, and cannot be logically defined. The 
objects of it are our present pains, our pleasures, our 
hopes, our fears, our desires, our doubts, our thoughts 
of every kind ; in a word, all the passions, and all the 
actions and operations of our own minds, while they 
are present. We may remember them when they are 
past ; but we are conscious of them only while they 
are present. 

When a man is conscious of pain, he is certain of 
its existence ; when he is conscious that he doubts, or 
believes, he is certain of the existence of those oper- 
ations. But the irresistible conviction he has of the 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 381. 

reality of those operations is not the effect of reason- 
ing; it is immediate and intuitive. The existence, 
therefore, of those passions and operations of onr 
minds, of which we are conscious, is a first principle, 
which Nature requires us to believe upon her authority. 

If I am asked to prove that I cannot be deceived by 
consciousness, — to prove that it is not a fallacious 
sense, — I can find no proof. I cannot find any ante- 
cedent truth from which it is deduced, or upon which 
its evidence depends. It seems to disdain any such 
derived authority, and to claim my assent in its own 
right. If any man could be found so frantic as to 
deny that he thinks, while he is conscious of it, I may 
wonder, I may laugh, or I may pity him, but I cannot 
reason the matter with him. We have no common 
principles from which we may reason, and therefore 
can never join issue in an argument. 

This, I think, is the only principle of common sense 
that has never directly been called in question.* It 
seems to be so firmly rooted in the minds of men, as to 
retain its authority with the greatest skeptics. Mr. 
Hume, after annihilating body and mind, time and 
space, action and causation, and even his own mind, 
acknowledges the reality of the thoughts, sensations, 
and passions of which he is conscious. 

No philosopher has attempted by any hypothesis to 
account for this consciousness of our own thoughts, 
and the certain knowledge of their real existence which 
accompanies it. By this they seem to acknowledge, 
that this at least is an original power of the mind ; a 
power by which we not only have ideas, but original 
judgments, and the knowledge of real existence. 

I cannot reconcile this immediate knowledge of the 
operations of our own minds with Mr. Locke's theory, 
that all knowledge consists in perceiving the agreement 
and disagreement of ideas. What are the ideas, from 

* It could not possibly be called in question. For, in doubting tbe fact 
of his consciousness, the skeptic must at least affirm the fact of his doubt ; 
but to affirm a doubt is to affirm the consciousness of it : the doubt would, 
therefore, be self-contradictory, — i. e. annihilate itself. — H. 



382 JUDGMENT. 

whose comparison the knowledge of our own thoughts 
results ? Or what are the agreements or disagree- 
ments which convince a man that he is in pain' when 
he feels it.* 

2. Another first principle, I think, is, that the thoughts 
of which I am conscious are the thoughts of a being 
which I call myself, my mind, my person. 

The thoughts and feelings of which we are con- 
scious are continually changing, and the thought of this 
moment is not the thought of the last ; but some- 
thing which I call myself remains under this change of 
thought. This self has the same relation to all the suc- 
cessive thoughts I am conscious of; they are all my 
thoughts ; and every thought which is not my thought 
must be the thought of some other person. 

If any man asks a proof of this, I confess I can give 
none ; there is an evidence in the proposition itself 
which I am unable to resist. Shall I think, that 
thought can stand by itself without a thinking being ? 
or that ideas can feel pleasure or pain ? My nature 
dictates to me that it is impossible. And that nature 
has dictated the same to all men appears from the 
structure of all languages : for in all languages men 
have expressed thinking, reasoning, willing, loving, 
hating, by personal verbs, which from their nature re- 
quire a person who thinks, reasons,, wills, loves, or 
hates. From which it appears, that men have been 
taught by nature to believe that thought requires a 
thinker, reason a reasoner, and love a lover, f 



* See M. Cousin's criticism on Locke's theory of knowledge, showing 
its inadequacy in respect to all immediate or ultimate cognitions, and all 
cognitions of real existences of whatever kind. Elements of Psychology, 
Chap. VIII. and IX. — Ed. 

t This is precisely what Descartes intended by his celebrated enthy- 
mem, Cogito, ergo sum, — so often objected to by Eeid and others, and so 
feebly and hesitatingly defended by Stewart, Essays, Ess. I. Chap. I. M. 
Cousin, in his Fragments Philosophiques, 3d ed., Tome I. p. 334 et seq., has 
set the question in its true light : — " Before Spinoza and Reid, Gassendi 
had attacked the enthymem of Descartes. ' The proposition, I think, 
therefore I am, supposes,' says Gassendi, ' this major, — That which thinks 
exists; and consequently involves a begging of the question.' To this 
Descartes replies: — 'I do not beg the question, for I do not suppose 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 383 

Here we must leave Mr. Hume, who conceives it to 
be a vulgar error, that, besides the thoughts we are con- 
scious of, there is a mind which is the subject of those 
thoughts. If the mind be any thing else than impres- 
sions and ideas, it must be a word without a meaning. 
The mind, therefore, according to this philosopher, is a 
word which signifies a bundle of perceptions ; or, when 
he defines it more accurately, " it is that succession of 
related ideas and impressions, of which we have an in- 
timate memory and consciousness." 

any major. I maintain that the proposition, / think, therefore I exist, 
is a particular truth which is introduced into the mind without recourse to 
any more general truth, and independently of any logical deduction. It is 
not a prejudice, but a natural judgment, which at once and irresistibly 
strikes the intelligence.' ' The notion of existence,' says he, in reply to 
the objections, ' is a primitive notion, not obtained by any syllogism, but 
evident in itself; and the mind discovers it by intuition.' Reasoning does 
not logically deduce existence from thought ; but the mind cannot think 
without knowing itself, because being is given in and under thought : — 
Cogito, ergo sum. The certainty of thinking does not go before the certain- 
ty of existence ; the former contains and develops the latter ; they are two 
contemporaneous verities blended in one fundamental verity. The funda- 
mental complex verity is the sole principle of the Cartesian philosophy." 

But Reid would still object, " Why not begin with some fact of the senses, 
as well as with some fact of consciousness, inasmuch as both rest on the 
same evidence 1 " — They do not rest on the same evidence ; for, as has 
been repeatedly intimated before, doubting the consciousness is the only 
doubt which is absolutely self-contradictory, which annihilates itself, and 
which, therefore, not only cannot be defended, but cannot be entertained. 
Descartes, following a method of the merits of which we do not now speak, 
was in quest of some fact or principle which he could not possibly doubt 
even in speculation, and such a fact or principle he found in the testimony 
of consciousness alone. This, therefore, he not only made his point of de- 
parture, but the point oVappui of his whole system, professing to accept 
nothing but the facts of consciousness and what these facts either contain 
or presuppose. In the same spirit one of the early English followers of 
Descartes wrote : — " If we reflect but upon our own souls, how manifestly 
do the species [notions] of reason, freedom, perception, and the like, offer 
themselves to us, whereby we may know a thousand times more distinctly 
what our souls are than what our bodies are. For the former we know by 
an immediate converse with ourselves, and a distinct sense of their opera- 
tions ; whereas all our knowledge of the body is little better than merely 
historical, which we gather up by scraps and piecemeal from more doubt- 
ful and uncertain experiments which we make of them : but the notions 
which we have of a mind, i. e. something within us that thinks, apprehends, 
reasons, and discourses, are so clear, and distinct from all those notions 
which we fasten upon a body, that we can easily conceive that, if all body- 
being in the world were destroyed, yet we might then as well subsist as 
now we do." — Smith's Select Discourses, Disc. IV. Chap. VI. — Ed. 



384 JUDGMENT. 

I am, therefore, that succession of related ideas and 
impressions of which I have the intimate memory and 
consciousness. But who is the /that has this memory 
and consciousness of a succession of ideas and impres- 
sions ? Why, it is nothing but that succession itself. 
Hence I learn, that this succession of ideas and impres- 
sions intimately remembers, and is conscious of itself. 
I would wish to be further instructed, whether the im- 
pressions remember and are conscious of the ideas, or 
the ideas remember and are conscious of the impres- 
sions, or if both remember and are conscious of both ? 
and whether the ideas remember those that come after 
them, as well as those that were before them ? These 
are questions naturally arising from this system, that 
have not yet been explained. 

This, however, is clear, that this succession of ideas 
and impressions not only remembers and is conscious, 
but that it judges, reasons, affirms, denies ; nay, that it 
eats and drinks, and is sometimes merry and some- 
times sad. If these things canl3e ascribed to a succes- 
sion of ideas and impressions, in a consistency with 
common sense, I should be very glad to know what is 
nonsense. 

The scholastic philosophers have been wittily ridi- 
culed, by representing them as disputing upon this 
question, — Num chimcera bombinans in vacuo possit 
comedere secundas intentiones ? And I believe the wit 
of man cannot invent a more ridiculous question. But, 
if Mr. Hume's philosophy be admitted, this question 
deserves to be treated more gravely ; for if, as we learn 
from this philosophy, a succession of ideas and impres- 
sions may eat, and drink, and be merry, I see no good 
reason why a chimera, which, if not the same, is of kin 
to an idea, may not chew the cud upon that kind of 
food which the schoolmen call second intentions* 



* All this criticism of Hume proceeds on the erroneous hypothesis that 
he was a dogmatist. He was a skeptic, — that is, he accepted the principles 
asserted by the prevalent dogmatism ; and only showed that such and such 
conclusions were, on these principles, inevitable. The absurdity was not 
Hume's, but Locke's. This is the kind of criticism, however, with which 
Hume is generally assailed. — H. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 385 

3. Another first principle I take to be, that those 
things did really happen which I distinctly remember. 

This has one of the surest marks of a first principle ; 
for no man ever pretended to prove it, and yet no man 
in his wits calls it in question. The testimony of 
memory, like that of consciousness, is immediate ; it 
claims our assent upon its own authority.* 

Suppose that a learned counsel, in defence of a client 
against the concurring testimony of witnesses of credit, 
should insist upon a new topic to invalidate the testi- 
mony. " Admitting," says he, " the inte'grity of the 
witnesses, and that they distinctly remember what they 
have given in evidence, it does not follow that the 
prisoner is guilty. It has never been proved that the 
most distinct memory may not be fallacious. Show 
me any necessary connection between that act of the 
mind which we call memory, and the past existence of 
the event remembered. No man has ever offered a 
shadow of argument to prove such a connection ; yet 
this is one link of the chain of proof against the 
prisoner ; and if it have no strength, the whole proof 
falls to the ground. Until this, therefore, be made evi- 
dent, until it can be proved, that we may safely rest 
upon the testimony of memory for the truth of past 
events, no judge or jury can justly take away the life 
of a citizen upon so doubtful a point." 

I believe we may take it for granted, that this argu- 
ment from a learned counsel would have no other effect 
upon the judge or jury, than to convince them that he 
was disordered in his judgment. Counsel is allowed 
to plead every thing for a client that is fit to persuade 
or to move ; yet I believe no counsel ever had the bold- 
ness to plead this topic. And for what reason ? For 
no other reason, surely, but because it is absurd. Now, 
what is absurd at the bar is so in the philosopher's 

* The datum of memory does not stand upon the same ground as the 
datum of simple consciousness. In so far as memory is consciousness, it 
cannot be denied. We cannot, without contradiction, deny the fact of 
memory as a present consciousness ; but we may, without contradiction, 
suppose that the past given therein is only an illusion of the present. — H. 



386 JUDGMENT. 

chair. What would be ridiculous, if delivered to a jury 
of honest, sensible citizens, is no less so when delivered 
gravely in a philosophical dissertation. 

4. Another first principle is our own personal identity 
and continued existence, as far back as we remember any 
thing distinctly. 

This we know immediately, and not by reasoning. 
It seems, indeed, to be a part of the testimony of mem- 
ory. Every thing we remember has such a relation to 
ourselves, as to imply necessarily our existence at the 
time remembered. And there cannot be a more palpa- 
ble absurdity than that a man should remember what 
happened before he existed. He must therefore have 
existed as far back as he remembers any thing dis- 
tinctly, if his memory be not fallacious. This princi- 
ple, therefore, is so connected with the last mentioned, 
that it may be doubtful whether both ought not to be 
included in one. Let every one judge of this as he 
sees reason. The proper notion of identity, and the 
opinions of Mr. Locke on this subject, have been con- 
sidered before under the head of Memory. 

5. Another first principle, I think, is, that toe have 
some degree of power over our actions, and the deter- 
minations of our will. 

All power must be derived from the Fountain of 
power and of every good gift. Upon his good pleasure 
its continuance depends, and it is always subject to his 
control. Beings to whom God has given any degree 
of power, and understanding to direct them to the 
proper use of it, must be accountable to their Maker. 
But those who are intrusted with no power can have 
no account to make ; for all good conduct consists in 
the right use of power ; all bad conduct in the abuse of 
it. To call to account a being who never was intrusted 
with any degree of power, is an absurdity no less than 
it would be to call to an account an inanimate being. 
We are sure, therefore, if we have any account to make 
to the Author of our being, that we must have some 
degree of power, which, as far as it is properly used, 
entitles us to his approbation ; and, when abused, ren- 
ders us obnoxious to his displeasure. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 387 

It is not easy to say in what way we first get the. 
notion or idea of power.' It is neither an object of sense 
nor of consciousness. We see events, one succeeding 
another ; but we see not the power by which they are 
produced. We are conscious of the operations of our 
minds ; but power is not an operation of mind. If we 
had no notions but such as are furnished by the exter- 
nal senses and by consciousness, it seems to be impos- 
sible that we should ever have any conception of power. 
Accordingly, Mr. Hume, who has reasoned the most 
accurately upon this hypothesis, denies that we have 
any idea of power, and clearly refutes the account 
given by Mr. Locke of the origin of this idea. 

But it is in vain to reason from an hypothesis against 
a fact, the truth of which every man may see by attend- 
ing to his own thoughts. It is evident, that all men, 
very early in life, not only have an idea of power, bat 
a conviction that they have some degree of it in them- 
selves ; for this conviction is necessarily implied in 
many operations of mind, which are familiar to every 
man, and without which no man can act the part of a 
reasonable being. 

First. It is implied in every act of volition. " Voli- 
tion, it is plain," says Mr. Locke, " is an act of the 
mind, knowingly exerting that dominion which it takes 
itself to have over any part of the man, by employing it 
in, or withholding it from, any particular action." Ev- 
ery volition therefore implies a conviction of power to 
do the action willed. A man may desire to make a 
visit to the moon, or to the planet Jupiter ; but nothing 
but insanity could make him will to do so. And if 
even insanity produced this effect, it must be by making 
him think it to be in his power. 

Secondly. This conviction is implied in all delibera- 
tion; for no man in his wits deliberates whether he 
shall do what he believes not to be in his power. 

Thirdly. The same conviction is implied in every res- 
olution or purpose formed in consequence of deliberation. 
A man may as well form a resolution to pull the moon 
out of her sphere, as to do the most insignificant action 



388 



JUDGMENT. 



which he believes not to be h\ his power. The same 
thing may be said of every promise or contract wherein 
a man plights his faith ; for he is not an honest man 
who promises what he does not believe he has power to 
perform. 

As these operations imply a belief of some degree of 
power in ourselves, so there are others equally common 
and familiar, which imply a like belief with regard to 
others. When we impute to a man any action or 
omission, as a ground of approbation or of blame, we 
must believe he had power to do otherwise. The 
same is implied in all advice, exhortation, command, 
and rebuke, and in every case in which we rely upon 
his fidelity in performing any engagement, or executing 
any trast. 

It is not more evident that mankind have a convic- 
tion of the existence of a material world, than that they 
have the conviction of some degree of power in them- 
selves, and in others, every one over his own actions, 
and the determinations of his will, — a conviction so 
early, so general, and so interwoven with the whole of 
human conduct, that it must be the natural effect of 
our constitution, and intended by the Author of our be- 
ing to guide our actions. It resembles our conviction 
of the existence of a material world in this respect also, 
that even those -who reject it in speculation find them- 
selves under a necessity of being governed by it in 
their practice ; and thus it will always happen when 
philosophy contradicts first principles* 

6. Another first principle is, that the natural faculties, 
by which tve distinguish truth from error, are not falla- 
cious. 

If any man should demand a proof of this, it is im- 
possible to satisfy him. For suppose it should be 
mathematically demonstrated, this would signify noth- 
ing in this case ; because, to judge of a demonstration, 

* This subject is discussed by Reid more at length in his Essays on the 
Active Powers of Man, Ess. I. See also Stewart's Philosophy of the Active 
and Moral Powers, Walker's edition, Book II. Chap. VI. ; Cousin's Elements 
of Psychology, Chap. IV. ; and Bowen's Lowell Lectures, Lect. IV. — Ed. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 389 

a man must trust his faculties, and take for granted 
the very thing in question. If a man's honesty were 
called in question, it would be ridiculous to refer it to 
the man's own word whether he be honest or not. The 
same absurdity there is in attempting to prove, by any 
kind of reasoning, probable or demonstrative, that our 
reason is not fallacious, since the very point in question 
is whether reasoning may be trusted. 

Descartes certainly made a false step in this matter ; 
for having suggested this doubt among others, — that 
whatever evidence he might have from his conscious- 
ness, his senses, his memory, or his reason, yet possibly 
some malignant being had given him those faculties on 
purpose to impose upon him ; and, therefore, that they 
are not to be trusted without a proper voucher, — to 
remove this doubt he endeavours to prove the being of 
a Deity who is no deceiver : whence he concludes, that 
the faculties he had given him are true and worthy to 
be trusted. 

It is strange that so acute a reasoner did not per- 
ceive, that in this reasoning there is evidently a begging; 
of the question. For if our faculties be fallacious, why 
may they not deceive us in this reasoning as well as in 
others ? And if they are to be trusted in this instance 
without a voucher, why not in others ? Every kind of 
reasoning for the veracity of our faculties amounts to 
no more than taking their own testimony for their ve- 
racity, and this we must do implicitly, until God give 
us new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old ; and 
the reason why Descartes satisfied himself with so weak 
an argument for the truth of his faculties most probably 
was, that he never seriously doubted of it. 

If any truth can be said to be prior to all others in 
the order of nature, this seems to have the best claim ; 
because in every instance of assent, whether upon in- 
tuitive, demonstrative, or probable evidence, the truth 
of our faculties is taken for granted, and is, as it were, 
one of the premises on which our assent is grounded.* 

* There is a presumption in favor of the veracity of the primary data 



390 



JUDGMENT. 



How, then, come we to be assured of this fundamen- 
tal truth on which all others rest? Perhaps evidence, 
as in many other respects it resembles light, so in this 
also, — that as light, which is the discoverer of all visi- 
ble objects, discovers itself at the same time, so evi- 
dence, which is the voucher for all truth, vouches for 
itself at the same time. This, however, is certain, that 
such is the constitution of the human mind, that evi- 
dence discerned by us forces a corresponding degree of 
assent. And a man who perfectly understood a just 
syllogism, without believing that the conclusion follows 
from the premises, would be a greater monster than a 
man born without hands or feet. 

We are born under a necessity of trusting to our rea- 
soning and judging powers ; and a real belief of their 
being fallacious cannot be maintained for any consider- 
able time by the greatest skeptic, because it is doing 
violence to our constitution. It is like a man's walk- 
ing upon his hands, a feat which some men upon occa- 
sion can exhibit ; but no man ever made a long journey 
in this manner. Cease to admire his dexterity, and he 
will, like other men, betake himself to his legs. 

We may here take notice of a property of the princi- 
ple under consideration, that seems to be common to it 
with many other first principles, and which can hardly 
be found in any principle that is built solely upon rea- 
soning ; and that is, that in most men it produces its 
effect ivithovt ever being attended to, or made an object 
of thought. No man ever thinks of this principle, unless 
when he considers the grounds of skepticism ; yet it in- 
variably governs his opinions. When a man in the 
common course of life gives credit to the testimony of 
his senses, his memory, or his reason, he does not put 
the question to himself, whether these faculties may de- 
ceive him ; yet the trust he reposes in them supposes 
an inward conviction, that, in that instance at least, 
they do not deceive him. 

of consciousness. This can only be rebutted by showing that these facts 
are contradictory. Skepticism attempts to show this on the principles 
which dogmatism postulates. — H. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 391 

It is another property of this and of many first prin- 
ciples, that they force assent in particular instances more 
powerfully than when they are turned into a general prop- 
osition. Many skeptics have denied every general prin- 
ciple of science, excepting, perhaps, the existence of our 
present thoughts ; yet these men reason, and refute, and 
prove, they assent and dissent in particular cases. They 
use reasoning to overturn all reasoning, and judge that 
they ought to have no judgment, and see clearly that 
they are blind. Many have in general maintained that 
the senses are fallacious, yet there never was found a 
man so skeptical as not to trust his senses in particular 
instances, when his safety required it ; and it may be 
observed of those who have professed skepticism, that 
their skepticism lies in generals, while in particulars 
they are no less dogmatical than others.* 

7. Another first principle I take to be, that certain 
features of the countenance, sounds of the voice, and ges- 
tures of the body, indicate certain thoughts and disposi- 
tions of mind. 

That many operations of the mind have their natural 
signs in the countenance, voice, and gesture, I suppose 
every man will admit. Omnis enim motus animi, says 
Cicero, suum quemdam habet a naturd vultum, et vocem, 
et gestum. The only question is, whether we under- 
stand the signification of those signs by the constitu- 
tion of our nature, by a kind of natural perception 
similar to the perceptions of sense ; or whether we grad- 
ually learn the signification of such signs from expe- 
rience, as we learn that smoke is a sign of fire, or that 
the freezing of water is a sign of cold. I take the first 
to be the truth. 

It seems to me incredible, that the notions men have 
of the expression of features, voice, and gesture are en- 
tirely the fruit of experience. Children, almost as soon 
as born, may be frighted and thrown into fits by a 
threatening or angry tone of voice. I knew a man who 



* Compare Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lect. LX.; and Javary, Dela 
Certitude, passim. — Ed. 



392 JUDGMENT. 

could make an infant cry, by whistling a melancholy 
tune in the same or in the next room ; and again, by 
altering his key, and the strain of his music, could make 
the child leap and dance for joy. 

It is not by experience surely that we learn the ex- 
pression of music ; for its operation is commonly strong- 
est the first time we hear it. One air expresses mirth 
and festivity ; so that, when we hear it, it is with diffi- 
culty we can forbear to dance. Another is sorrowful 
and solemn. One inspires with tenderness and love ; 
another with rage and fury. 

" Hear how Timotheus' varied lays surprise, 
And bid alternate passions all and rise ; 
While, at each change, the son of Lybian Jove 
Now burns with glory, and then melts with love. 
Now his fierce eyes with sparkling fury glow, 
Now sighs steal out, and tears begin to flow. 
Persians and Greeks like turns of nature found, 
And the world's victor stood subdued by sound." 

The countenance and gesture have an expression no 
less strong and natural than the voice. The first time 
one sees a stern and fierce look, a contracted brow, and 
a menacing posture, he concludes that the person is in- 
flamed with anger. Shall we say, that, previous to ex- 
perience, the most hostile countenance has as agreeable 
an appearance as the most gentle and benign ? This 
surely would contradict all experience ; for we know 
that an angry countenance will fright a child in the 
cradle. Who has not observed, that children, very 
early, are able to distinguish what is said to them in 
jest from what is said in earnest, by the tone of the 
voice, and the features of the face ? They judge by 
these natural signs, even when they seem to contradict 
the artificial. 

If it were by experience that we learn the meaning 
of features, and sound, and gesture, it might be ex- 
pected that we should recollect the time when we first 
learnt those lessons, or at least some of such a multi- 
tude. Those who give attention to the operations of 
children can easily discover the time when they have 
their earliest notices from experience, — such as that 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 393 

flame will burn, or that knives will cut. But no man 
is able to recollect in himself, or to observe in others, 
the time when the expression of the face, voice, and 
gesture was learned. 

Nay, I apprehend that it is impossible that this 
should be learned from experience. When we see the 
sign, and see the thing signified always conjoined with 
it, experience may be the instructor, and teach us how 
that sign is to be interpreted. But how shall expe- 
rience instruct us when we see the sign only, — when 
the thing signified is invisible ? Now this is the case 
here ; the thoughts and passions of the mind, as well as 
the mind itself, are invisible, and therefore their connec- 
tion with any sensible sign cannot be first discovered 
by experience ; there must be some earlier source of this 
knowledge. 

Nature seems to have given to men a faculty or 
sense by which this connection is perceived. And the 
operation of this sense is very analogous to that of the 
external senses. When I grasp an ivory ball in my 
hand, I feel a certain sensation of touch. In the sensa- 
tion there is nothing external, nothing corporeal. The 
sensation is neither round nor hard ; it is an act or feel- 
ing of the mind, from which I cannot, by reasoning, in- 
fer the existence of any body. But, by the constitution 
of my nature, the sensation carries along with it the 
conception and belief of a round, hard body really exist- 
ing in my hand. In like manner, when I see the fea- 
tures of an expressive face, I see only figure and color 
variously modified. But by the constitution of my na- 
ture, the visible object brings along with it the concep- 
tion and belief of a certain passion or sentiment in the 
mind of the person. In the former case, a sensation of 
touch is the sign, and the hardness and roundness of 
the body I grasp is signified by that sensation. In the 
latter case, the features of the person are the sign, and 
the passion or sentiment is signified by it. 

The power of natural signs, to signify the sentiments 
and passions of the mind, is seen in the signs of dumb 
persons, who can make themselves to be understood in 



394 JUDGMENT. 

a considerable degree, even by those who are wholly in- 
experienced in that language. 

It is seen in the traffic which has been frequently 
carried on between people that have no common ac- 
quired language. They can buy and sell, and ask and 
refuse, and show a friendly or hostile disposition by 
natural signs. 

It was seen still more in the actors among the an- 
cients, who performed the gesticulation upon the stage, 
while others recited the words. To such a pitch was 
this art carried, that we are told Cicero and Roscius 
used to contend whether the orator could express any 
thing by words which the actor could not express in 
dumb show by gesticulation ; and whether the same 
sentence or thought could not be acted in all the va- 
riety of ways in which the orator could express it in 
words. 

But the most surprising exhibition of this kind was 
that of the pantomimes among the Romans, who acted 
plays, or scenes of plays, without any recitation, and 
yet could be perfectly understood. And here it deserves 
our notice, that, although it required much study and 
practice in the pantomimes to excel in their art, yet it 
required neither study nor practice in the spectators to 
understand them. It was a natural language, and 
therefore understood by all men, whether Romans, 
Greeks, or barbarians, by the learned and the unlearned. 
Lucian relates, that a king, whose dominions bordered 
upon the Euxine Sea, happening to be at Rome in the 
reign of Nero, and having seen a pantomime act, beg- 
ged him of Nero, that he might use him in his in- 
tercourse with all the nations in his neighbourhood. 
" For," said he, " I am obliged to employ I don't know 
how many interpreters, in order to keep up a correspond- 
ence with neighbours who speak many languages, and 
do not understand mine ; but this fellow will make 
them all understand him." 

For these reasons, I conceive, it must be granted, not 
only that there is a connection established by nature 
between certain signs in the countenance, voice, and 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 395 

gesture, and the thoughts and passions of the mind ; 
but also, that, by our constitution, we understand the 
meaning of those signs, and from the sign conclude the 
existence of the thing signified.* 

8. Another first principle appears to me to be, that 
there is a certain regard due to human testimony in mat- 
ters of fact, and even to human authority in matters of 
opinion. 

Before we are capable of reasoning about testimony 
or authority, there are many things which it concerns 
us to know, for which we can have no other evidence. 
The wise Author of nature has planted in the human 
mind a propensity to rely upon this evidence before we 
can give a reason for doing so. This, indeed, puts our 
judgment almost entirely in the power of those who 
are about us in the first period of life ; but this is 
necessary both to our preservation and to our improve- 
ment. If children were so framed, as to pay no regard 
to testimony or to authority, they must, in the literal 
sense, " perish for lack of kno pledge." It is not more 
necessary that they should be fed before they can feed 
themselves, than that they should be instructed in many 
things before they can discover them by their own 
judgment. 

But when our faculties ripen, we find reason to check 
that propensity to yield to testimony and to authority, 
which was so necessary and so natural in the first pe- 
riod of life. We learn to reason about the regard due 
to them, and see it to be a childish weakness to lay 
more stress upon them than reason justifies. Yet, I 
believe, to the end of life, most men are more apt to go 
into this extreme than into the contrary ; and the natu- 
ral propensity still retains some force. 

The natural principles, by which our judgments and 
opinions are regulated before we come to the use of 
reason, seem to be no less necessary to such a being as 



* Compare Condillac, Essai sur VOrigine des Connoissances Humaines, IP 
Partie (translated by Nugent, An Essay on the Origin of Human Knowl- 
edge). Upham's Mental Philosophy, Appendix to Vol. II. Chap. I. — Ed. 



396 JUDGMENT. 

man, than those natural instincts which the Author of 
nature has given us to regulate our actions during that 
period.* 

9. The last principle of contingent truths I mention 
is, that, in the phenomena of nature, tvhat is to be wilt 
probably be like to what has been in similar circum- 
stances. 

We must have this conviction as soon as we are 
capable of learning any thing from experience ; for all 
experience is grounded upon a belief that the future 
will be like the past. Take away this principle, and 
the experience of a hundred years makes us no wiser 
with regard to what is to come. 

This is one of those principles, which, when we grow 
up and observe the course of nature, we can confirm 
by reasoning. We perceive that nature is governed by 
fixed laws, and that, if it were not so, there could be 
no such thing as prudence in human conduct ; there 
would be no fitness in any means to promote an end ; 
and what, on one occasion, promoted it, might as prob- 
ably, on another occasion, obstruct it. But the prin- 
ciple is necessary for us before we are able to discover 
it by reasoning, and therefore is made a part of our 
constitution, and produces its effects before the use of 
reason. 

This principle remains in all its force when we come 
to the use of reason ; but we learn to be more cautious 
in the application of it. We observe more carefully 
the circumstances on which the past event depended, 
and learn to distinguish them from those which were 
accidentally conjoined with it. In order to this, a num- 
ber of experiments, varied in their circumstances, is 
often necessary. Sometimes a single experiment is 
thought sufficient to establish a general conclusion. 
Thus, when it was once found that, in a certain degree 
of cold, quicksilver became a hard and malleable metal, 



* See more on this topic in Campbell's Dissertation on Miracles, Part I. 
Sect. I., and Chalmers's Evidences of the Christian Revelation, Book I. 
Chap. III.— Ed. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 397 

there was good reason to think, that the same degree 
of cold would always produce this effect to the end of 
the world. 

I need hardly mention, that the whole fabric of nat- 
ural philosophy is built upon this principle, and, if it 
be taken away, must tumble down to the foundation. 
Therefore the great Newton lays it down as an axiom, 
or as one of his laws of philosophizing, in these words : 
— Effectuum naturalium ejusdem generis easdem esse 
causas. This is what every man assents to as soon as 
he understands it, and no man asks a reason for it. It 
has therefore the most genuine marks of a first prin- 
ciple. 

It is very remarkable, that, although all our expecta- 
tion of what is to happen in the course of nature is 
derived from the belief of this principle, yet no man 
thinks of asking what is the ground of this belief. Mr. 
Hume, I think, was the first * who put this question ; 
and he has shown clearly and invincibly, that it is 
neither grounded upon reasoning, nor has that kind of 
intuitive evidence which mathematical axioms have. 
It is not a necessary truth. 

He has endeavoured to account for it upon his own 
principles. It is not my business at present to examine 
the account he has given of this universal belief of 
mankind ; because, whether his account of it be just or 
not (and I think it is not), yet, as this belief is univer- 
sal among mankind, and is not grounded upon any 
antecedent reasoning, but upon the constitution of the 
mind itself, it must be acknowledged to be a first prin- 
ciple, in the sense in which I use that word.f 

IV. First Principles of Necessary Truths.] About 
most of the first principles of necessary truths there has 

* Hume was not the first : but on the various opinions touching the 
ground of our expectancy, I cannot touch. — H. 

t Compare Stewart's Elements, Part I. Chap. IV. Sect. 5, and Essays, 
Ess. II. Chap. II.: Brown's Philosophy of the Mind, Lect. VI., and Cause 
and Effect, Parts III. and IV. ; and Bailey, On the Pursuit of Truth, Essay 
III. — J. S. Mill contends for the empirical origin of this principle, System 
of Lorjic, Book III Chap. III. and XXI. — Ed. 

34 



398 JUDGMENT. 

been no dispute, and therefore it is the less necessary 
to dwell upon them. It will be sufficient to divide 
them into different classes ; to mention some by way 
of specimen, in each class ; and to make some remarks 
on those of which the truth has been called in question. 
They may, I think, most properly be divided accord- 
ing to the sciences to which they belong. 

1. There are some first principles that may be called 
grammatical ; such as, that every adjective in a sentence 
must belong to some substantive expressed or understood ; 
that every complete sentence must have a verb. 

Those who have attended to the structure of lan- 
guage, and formed distinct notions of the nature and 
use of the various parts of speech, perceive, without 
reasoning, that these, and many other such principles, 
are necessarily true. 

2. There are logical axioms ; such as, that any con- 
texture of words, ivhich does not make a proposition, is 
neither true nor false ; that every proposition is either 
true or false ; that no proposition can be both true and 
false at the same lime ; that reasoning in a circle proves 
nothing ; that whatever may be truly affirmed of a genus, 
may truly be affirmed of all the species and all the indi- 
viduals belonging to that genus. 

3. Every one knows there are mathematical axioms. 
Mathematicians have, from the days of Euclid, very 
wisely laid down the axioms or first principles on which 
they reason. And the effect which this appears to have 
had upon the stability and happy progress of this sci- 
ence gives no small encouragement to attempt to lay 
the foundation of other sciences in a similar manner, 
as far as we are able.* 

Mr. Hume has discovered, as he apprehends, a weak 
side, even in mathematical axioms ; and thinks that it 
is not strictly true, for instance, that two right lines can 
cut one another in one point only. The principle he 



* On mathematical axioms, see Stewart's Elements, Part II. Chap. I. 
§§ 1,2; Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Book II. Chap. V. ; 
Mill's System of Logic, Book'll. Chap. V. and VI. — Ed 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 399 

reasons from is, that every simple idea is a copy of a 
preceding impression ; and therefore, in its precision 
and accuracy, can never go beyond its original. From 
which he reasons in this manner : — No man ever saw 
or felt a line so straight, that it might not cut another, 
equally straight, in two or more points. Therefore 
there can be no idea of such a line. The ideas that 
are most essential to geometry, such as those of equal- 
ity, of a straight line, and of a square surface, are far, 
he says, from being distinct and determinate ; and the 
definitions destroy the pretended demonstrations. Thus, 
mathematical demonstration is found to be a rope of 
sand. 

I agree with this acute author, that, if we could form 
no notion of points, lines, and surfaces more accurate 
than those we see and handle, there could be no mathe- 
matical demonstration. But every man that has under- 
standing, by analyzing, by abstracting, and compound- 
ing the rude materials exhibited by his senses, can 
fabricate, in his own mind, those- elegant and accurate 
forms of mathematical lines, surfaces, and solids. If a 
man finds himself incapable of forming a precise and 
determinate notion of the figure which mathematicians 
call a cube, he not only is no mathematician, but is 
incapable of being one. But if he has a precise and 
determinate notion of that figure, he must perceive that 
it is terminated by six mathematical surfaces, perfectly 
square, and perfectly equal. He must perceive that 
these surfaces are terminated by twelve mathematical 
lines, perfectly straight, and perfectly equal, and that 
those lines are terminated by eight mathematical points. 

When a man is conscious of having these concep- 
tions distinct and determinate, as every mathematician 
is, it is in vain to bring metaphysical arguments to 
convince him that they are not distinct. You may as 
well bring arguments to convince a man racked with 
pain that he feels no pain. Every theory that is in- 
consistent with our having accurate notions of mathe- 
matical lines, surfaces, and solids, must be false. 

4. I think there are axioms, even in matters of taste. 



400 JUDGMENT. 

Notwithstanding the variety found among men, in 
taste, there are, I apprehend, some common principles, 
even in matters of this kind. I never heard of any 
man who thought it a beauty in a human face to want 
a nose, or an eye, or to have the mouth on one side. 
How many ages have passed since the days of Homer? 
Yet, in this long tract of ages, there never was found a 
man who took Thersites for a beauty. 

The Fine Arts are very properly called the Arts of 
Taste, because the principles of both are the same ; 
and in the fine arts, we find no less agreement among 
those who practise them than among other artists. No 
work of taste can be either relished or understood by 
those who do not agree with the author in the princi- 
ples of taste. Homer, and Virgil, and Shakspeare, and 
Milton, had the same taste ; and all men who have 
been acquainted with their writings, and agree in the 
admiration of them, must have the same taste. The 
fundamental rules of poetry and music and painting, 
and dramatic action and eloquence, have been always 
the same, and will be so to the end of the world. 

The variety we find among men in matters of taste 
is easily accounted for, consistently with what we have 
advanced. There is a taste that is acquired, and a 
taste that is natural. This holds with respect both to 
the external sense of taste and the internal. Habit 
and fashion have a powerful influence upon both. 

Of tastes that are natural, there are some that may 
be called rational, others that are merely animal. Chil- 
dren are delighted with brilliant and gaudy colors, with 
romping and noisy mirth, with feats of agility, strength, 
or cunning ; and savages have much the same taste as 
children. But there are tastes that are more intellec- 
tual. It is the dictate of our rational nature, that love 
and admiration are misplaced when there is no intrinsic 
worth in the object. In those operations of taste which 
are rational, we judge of the real worth and excellence 
of the object, and our love or admiration is guided by 
that judgment. In such operations there is judgment 
as well as feeling, and the feeling depends upon the 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 401 

judgment we form of the object. I do not maintain 
that taste, so far as it is acquired, or so far as it is 
merely animal, can be reduced to principles. But as 
far as it is founded on judgment, it certainly may. 
The virtues, the graces, the muses, have a beauty that 
is intrinsic. It lies not in the feelings of the spectator, 
but in the real excellence of the object. If we do not 
perceive their beauty, it is owing to the defect or to the 
perversion of our faculties. 

And as there is an original beauty in certain moral 
and intellectual qualities, so there is a borrowed and 
derived beauty in the natural signs and expressions of 
such qualities. The features of the human face, the 
modulations of the voice, and the proportions, attitudes, 
and gestures of the body, are all natural expressions of 
good or bad qualities of the person, and derive a 
beauty or a deformity from the qualities which they 
express. Works of art express some quality of the 
artist, and often derive an additional beauty from their 
utility or fitness for their end. Of such things there 
are some that ought to please, and others that ought 
to displease. If they do not, it is owing to some de- 
fect in the spectator. But what has real excellence 
will always please those who have a correct judgment 
and a sound heart. 

The sum of what has been said upon this subject is, 
that, setting aside the tastes which men acquire by 
habit and fashion, there is a natural taste, which is 
partly animal and partly rational. With regard to the 
first, all we can say is, that the Author of nature, for 
wise reasons, has formed us so as to receive pleasure 
from the contemplation of certain objects, and disgust 
from others, before we are capable of perceiving any 
real excellence in one, or defect in the other. But that 
taste which we may call rational, is that part of our 
constitution by which we are made to receive pleasure 
from the contemplation of what we conceive to be 
excellent in its kind, the pleasure being annexed to 
this judgment, and regulated by it. This taste may be 
true or false, according as it is founded on a true or 
34* 



402 JUDGMENT. 

false judgment. And if it may be true or false, it 
must have first principles.* 

5. There are also first principles in morals. That an 
unjust action has more demerit than an ungenerous one ; 
that a generous action has more merit than a merely just 
one ; that no man ought to be blamed for what it was 
not in his power to hinder ; that we ought not to do to 
others what we would think unjust or unfair to be done 
to tis in like circumstances : these are moral axioms, 
and many others might be named which appear to me 
to have no less evidence than those of mathematics. 

Some perhaps may think, that our determinations, 
either in matters of taste or in morals, ought not to be 
accounted necessary truths : that they are grounded 
upon the constitution of that faculty which we call 
taste, and of that which we call the moral sense or 
conscience ; which faculties might have been so con- 
stituted as to have given determinations different, or 
even contrary, to those they now give : that, as there is 
nothing sweet or bitter in itself, but according as it 
agrees or disagrees with the external sense called taste, 
so there is nothing beautiful or ugly in itself, but ac- 
cording as it agrees or disagrees with the internal 
sense, which we also call taste ; and nothing morally 
good or ill in itself, but according as it agrees or disa- 
grees with our moral sense. 

This, indeed, is a system, with regard to morals and 
taste, which has been supported in modern times by 
great authorities. And if this system be true, the con- 
sequence must be, that there can be no principles, either 
of taste or of morals, that are necessary truths. For, 
according to this system, all our determinations, both 
with regard to matters of taste and with regard to 
morals, are reduced to matters of fact, — to such, I 
mean, as these, that by our constitution we have on 



* Compare Karnes's Elements of Criticism, Chap. XXV. ; Sir Joshua 
Reynolds's Discourses, Disc. VII. ; Edinburgh Review, Vol. XVIII. p. 43 
et seq. ; Cousin Sur le Fondement des Idees Absolues, Lemons XIX. et XX. 
(Cousin's Chapters on Beauty have been translated by J. C. Daniel, The 

Philosophy of the Beautiful.) — Ed. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 403 

such occasions certain agreeable feelings, and on other 
occasions certain disagreeable feelings. 

But I cannot help being of a contrary opinion, being 
persuaded that a man who determined that polite be- 
haviour has great deformity, and that there is a great 
beauty in rudeness and ill-breeding, would judge wrong, 
whatever his feelings were. In like manner, I cannot 
help thinking, that a man who determined that there is 
more moral worth in cruelty, perfidy, and injustice, 
than in generosity, justice, prudence, and temperance, 
would judge wrong, whatever his constitution was. 
And if it be true that there is judgment in our deter- 
minations of taste and of morals, it must be granted 
that what is true or false in morals, or in matters of 
taste, is necessarily so. For this reason, I have ranked 
the first principles of morals and of taste under the 
class of necessary truths.* 

6. The last class of first principles I shall mention, 
we may call metaphysical. 

I shall particularly consider three of these, because 
they have been called in question by Mr. Hume. 

(1.) The jirst is, that the qualities which we perceive 
by our senses must have a subject, which we call body, 
and that the thoughts ive are conscious of must have a 
subject, which we call mind. 

It is not more evident that two and two make four, 
than it is that figure cannot exist, unless there be some- 
thing that is figured, nor motion without something 
that is moved. I not only perceive figure and motion, 
but I perceive them to be qualities : they have a neces- 
sary relation to something in which they' exist as their 
subject. The difficulty which some philosophers ha\te 
found in admitting this, is entirely owing to the theory 
of ideas. A subject of the sensible qualities which we 
perceive by our senses, hnot an idea either of sensation 
or of consciousness ; therefore, say they, we have no 



* Compare Bentham's Principles of Morals and Legislation, Chap. II. ; 
Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lect. XX. ; Whewell's Lectures on Syste- 
matic Morality, Lect. II. and III. — Ed. 



404 



JUDGMENT. 



such idea. Or, in the style of Mr. Hume, From what 
impression is the idea of substance derived ? It is not 
a copy of any impression ; therefore there is no such 
idea. 

The distinction between sensible qualities and the 
substance to which they belong, and between thought 
and the mind that thinks, is not the invention of phi- 
losophers ; it is found in the structure of all languages, 
and therefore must be common to all men who speak 
with understanding. And I believe no man, however 
skeptical he may be in speculation, can talk on the 
common affairs of life for half an hour, without saying 
things that imply his belief of the reality of these dis- 
tinctions. 

Mr. Locke acknowledges, " That we cannot conceive 
how simple ideas of sensible qualities should subsist 
alone; and therefore we suppose them to exist in, and 
to be supported by, some common subject." In his 
Essay, indeed, some of his expressions seem to leave 
it dubious whether this belief that sensible qualities 
must have a subject be a true judgment, or a vulgar 
prejudice. But in his first letter to the Bishop of Wor- 
cester, he removes this doubt, and quotes many pas- 
sages of his Essay, to show that he neither denied nor 
doubted of the existence of substances, both thinking 
and material ; and that he believed their existence on 
the same ground the Bishop did, to wit, " on the repug- 
nancy to our conceptions, that modes and accidents 
should subsist by themselves." He offers no proof of 
this repugnancy; nor, I think, can any proof of it be 
given, because it is a first principle. 
» It were to be wished that Mr. Locke, who inquired 
so accurately and laudably into the origin, certainty, 
and extent of human knowledge, had turned his atten- 
tion more particularly to the origin of these two opin- 
ions which he firmly believed ; to wit, that sensible 
qualities must have a subject which we call body, and 
that thought must have a subject which we call mind. 
A due attention to these two opinions, which govern 
the belief of all men, even of skeptics in the practice 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 405 

of life, would probably have led him to perceive, that 
sensation and consciousness are not the only sources 
of human knowledge ; and that there are principles 
of belief in human nature, of which we can give no 
other account but that they necessarily result from the 
constitution of our faculties ; and that, if it were in our 
power to throw off their influence upon our practice 
and conduct, we could neither speak nor act like rea- 
sonable men.* 

(2.) The second metaphysical principle I mention is, • 
that whatever begins to exist must have a cause which 
produced it. 

With regard to this point, we must hold one of these 
three things ; either that it is an opinion for which we 
have no evidence, and which men have foolishly taken 
up without ground ; or that it is capable of direct proof 
by argument; or that it is self-evident, and needs no 
proof but ought to be received as an axiom which can- 
not by reasonable men be called in question. 

The first of these suppositions would put an end to 
all philosophy, to all religion, to all reasoning that 
would carry us beyond the objects of sense, and to all 
prudence in the conduct of life. 

As to the second supposition, that this principle may 
be proved by direct reasoning, I am afraid we shall find 
the proof extremely difficult, if not altogether impossi- 
ble. 

I know only of three or four arguments that have 
been urged by philosophers, in the way of abstract rea- 
soning, to prove that things which begin to exist must 
have a cause. 

One is offered by Mr. Hobbes, another by Dr. Sam- 
uel Clarke, another by Mr. Locke. Mr. Hume, in his 
Treatise of Human Nature, Book I. Part III. Sect. III., 
has examined them all ; and, in my opinion, has shown 
that they take for granted the thing to be proved ; a 



* See Boyer-Collard, Fragments, VIII., appended to Jouffroy's GEuvres 
de Reid, Tome IV. p. 300 ; Cousin's Elements of Psychology, Chap. III. ; 
Mill's Analysis, Chap. XI. — Ed. 



406 JUDGMENT. 

kind of false reasoning which men are apt to fall into 
when they attempt to prove what is self-evident. 

It has been thought, that, although this principle 
does not admit of proof from abstract reasoning, it 
may be proved from experience, and may be justly 
drawn by induction from instances that fall within our 
observations. 

I conceive this method of proof would leave us in 
great uncertainty, for these three reasons : — 

First. Because the proposition to be proved is not 
a contingent but a necessary proposition. It is not, 
that things which begin to exist commonly have a 
cause, or even that they always in fact have a cause ; 
but that they must have a cause, and cannot begin to 
exist without a cause. Propositions of this kind, from 
their nature, are incapable of proof by induction. Ex- 
perience informs us only of what is or has been, not of 
what must be ; and the conclusion must be of the same 
nature with the premises. For this reason, no mathe- 
matical proposition can be proved by induction. Though 
it should be found by experience in a thousand cases 
that the area of a plane triangle is equal to the rec- 
tangle under the altitude and half the base, this would 
not prove that it must be so in all cases, and cannot be 
otherwise ; which is what the mathematician affirms. 
In like manner, though we had the most ample experi- 
mental proof that things which have begun to exist 
had a cause, this would not prove that they must have 
a cause. Experience may show us what is the estab- 
lished course of nature, but can never show what con- 
nections of things are in their nature necessary. 

Secondly. General maxims, grounded on experience, 
have only a degree of probability proportioned to the 
extent of our experience, and ought always to be un- 
derstood so as to leave room for exceptions, if future 
experience shall discover any such. The law of gravi- 
tation has as full a proof from experience and induction 
as any principle can be supposed to have. Yet if any 
philosopher should, by clear experiment, show mat 
there is a kind of matter in some bodies which does 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 407 

not gravitate, the law of gravitation ought to be limited 
by that exception. Now it is evident that men have 
never considered the principle of the necessity of causes 
as a truth of this kind, which may admit of limitation 
or exception ; and therefore it has not been received 
upon this kind of evidence. 

Thirdly. I do not see that experience could satisfy 
us that every change in nature actually has a cause. 
In the far greater part of the changes in nature that fall 
within our observation, the causes are unknown, and 
therefore, from experience, we cannot know whether 
they have causes or not. Causation is not an object 
of sense. The only experience we can have of it is in 
the consciousness we have of exerting some power in 
ordering our thoughts and actions.* But this experi- 
ence is surely too narrow a foundation for a general 
conclusion, that all things that have had or shall have 
a beginning must have a cause. For these reasons, 
this principle cannot be drawn from experience, any 
more than from abstract reasoning. 

The third supposition is, that it is to be admitted as 
a first or self-evident principle. Two reasons may be 
urged for this. 

First. The universal consent of mankind, not of phi- 
losophers only, but of the rude and unlearned vulgar. 

Mr. Hume, as far as I know, was the first that ever 
expressed any doubt of this principle.! And when we 
consider that he has rejected every principle of human 
knowledge, excepting that of consciousness, and has 
not even spared the axioms of mathematics, his au- 
thority is of small weight. 

Setting aside the authority of Mr. Hume, what has 
philosophy been employed in, since men first began to 

* From this consciousness, many philosophers have, after Locke, en- 
deavoured to deduce our whole notion of causality- The ablest develop- 
ment of this theory is that of M. Maine de Biran [Examen des Lecons de 
Philosophic de M. Laromiguie're, § 8, and Exposition de la Doctrine Philoso- 
phigue de Leibnitz] ; the ablest refutation of it, that of his friend and editor, 
M. Cousin [in his Preface to the fourth volume of (Euvres de Maine de 
Biran, and in Elements of Psychology, Chap. IV.]. — H. 

t Hume was not the first. — H. 



408 JUDGMENT. 

philosophize, but in the investigation of the causes of 
things ? This it has always professed, when we trace 
it to its cradle. It never entered into any man's 
thought, before the philosopher we have mentioned, to 
put the previous question, whether things have a cause 
or not. Had it been thought possible that they might 
not, it may be presumed, that, in the variety of absurd 
and contradictory causes assigned, some one would 
have had recourse to this hypothesis. 

They could conceive the world to arise from an egg, 
— from a struggle between love and strife, between 
moisture and drought, between heat and cold ; but they 
never supposed that it had no cause. We know not 
any atheistic sect that ever had recourse to this topic, 
though by it they might have evaded every argument 
that could be brought against them, and answered all 
objections to their system. But rather than adopt such 
an absurdity, they contrived some imaginary cause — 
such as chance, a concourse of atoms, or necessity — as 
the cause of the universe. 

The accounts which philosophers have given of par- 
ticular phenomena, as well as of the universe in general, 
proceed upon the same principle. That every phe- 
nomenon must have a cause, was always taken for 
granted. Nil turpius physico, says Cicero, quam fieri 
sine causa quicquam dicere. Though an Academic, he 
was dogmatical in this. And Plato, the father of the 

Academy, Was no less SO. Uavri yap ddvvarov x<»pis a'lriov 

yeveo-iv exeiv (" It is impossible that any thing should 
have its origin without a cause"). — Timcms. 

Secondly. Another reason why I conceive this to be 
a first principle is, that mankind not only assent to it 
in speculation, but that the practice of life is grounded 
upon it in the most important matters, even in cases 
where experience leaves us doubtful ; and it is impossi- 
ble to act with common prudence if we set it aside. 

In great families there are so many bad things done 
by a certain personage called Nobody, that it is prover- 
bial that there is a Nobody about every house who 
does a great deal of mischief ; and even where there is 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 409 

the exactest inspection and government, many events 
will happen of which no other author can be found : so 
that, if we trust merely to experience in this matter, 
Nobody will be found to be a very active person, and 
to have no inconsiderable share in the management of 
affairs. But whatever countenance this system may 
have from experience, it is too shocking to common 
sense to impose upon the most ignorant. A child 
knows, that, when his top or any of his playthings are 
taken away, it must be done by somebody. Perhaps it 
would not be difficult to persuade him that it was done 
by some invisible being, but that it should be done by 
nobody he cannot believe. 

Suppose a man's house to be broken open, his money 
and jewels taken away. Such things have happened 
times innumerable without any apparent cause ; and 
were he only to reason from experience in such a case, 
how must he behave ? He must put in one scale the 
instances wherein a cause was found of such an event, 
and in the other scale the instances where no cause 
was found, and the preponderant scale must determine 
whether it be most probable that there was a cause of 
this event, or that there was none. Would any man of 
common understanding have recourse to such an expe- 
dient to direct his judgment? 

Suppose a man to be found dead on the highway, 
his skull fractured, his body pierced with deadly wounds, 
his watch and money carried off. The coroner's jury 
sits upon the body, and the question is put, What was 
the cause of this man's death, — was it accident, ovfelo 
de se, or murder by persons unknown ? Let us suppose 
an adept in Mr. Hume's philosophy to make one of the 
jury, and that he insists upon the previous question, — 
whether there was any cause of the event, or whether 
it happened without a cause. 

Surely, upon Mr. Hume's principles, a great deal 
might be said upon this point ; and, if the matter is to 
be determined by past experience, it is dubious on 
which side the weight of argument might stand. But 
we may venture to say, that, if Mr. Hume had been of 
35 



410 JUDGMENT. 

such a jury, he would have laid aside his philosophical 
principles, and acted according to the dictates of com- 
mon prudence.* 

(3.) The third and last metaphysical principle I men- 
tion, which is opposed by the same author, is, that de- 
sign and intelligence in the cause may be inferred, with 
certainty, from marks or signs of them in the effect. 

Intelligence, design, and skill are not objects of the 
external senses, nor can we be conscious of them in any 
person but ourselves. Even in ourselves, we cannot, 
with propriety, be said to be conscious of the natural or 
acquired talents we possess. We are conscious only 
of the operations of mind in which they are exerted. 
Indeed, a man comes to know his own mental abilities, 
just as he knows another man's, by the effects they 
produce, "when there is occasion to put them to exer- 
cise. 

A man's wisdom is known to us only by the signs of 
it in his conduct ; his eloquence, by the signs of it in 
his speech. In the same manner we judge of his vir- 
tue, of his fortitude, and of all his talents and qualities 
of mind. Yet it is to be observed, that we judge of 
men's talents with as little doubt or hesitation as we 
judge of the immediate objects of sense. One person, 
we are sure, is a perfect idiot ; another, who feigns 
idiotism to screen himself from pmiishment, is found 
upon trial to have the understanding of a man, and to 
be accountable for his conduct. We perceive one man 
to be open, another cunning ; one to be ignorant, an- 
other very knowing ; one to be slow of understanding, 
another quick. Every man forms such judgments of 

* As has been intimated more than once, Mr. Hume did not lay down 
his conclusions as true, as something to be believed, — for he was a skeptic, 
and not a believer, — but as following inevitably from the assumptions of the 
dogmatists. It is the triumph of skepticism to show that speculation and 
practice are irreconcilable. 

On the principle of causality, consult Hutton's Investigation of the Princi- 
ples of Knowledge, Part II. Sect. VI. ; Scott's Inquiry into the Limits and 
Peculiar Objects of Physical and Metaphysical Science, Chap. III. Sect. I.; 
Cousin's Elements of Psychology. Chap. IV. ; Whewell's Philosophy of the 
Inductive Sciences, Part I. Book III. Chap. I. -IV. ; Mill's System of Logic, 
Book III. Chap. XXI.; Bowen's Lowell Lectures, Lect. IV. and VI, — Ed. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 411 

those he converses with ; and the common affairs of 
life depend upon such judgments. We can as little 
avoid them as we can avoid seeing what is before our 
eyes. 

From this it appears, that it is no less a part of the 
human constitution to judge of men's characters, and 
of their intellectual powers, from the signs of them in 
their actions and discourse, than to judge of corporeal 
objects by our senses ; that such judgments are com- 
mon to the whole human race that are endowed with 
understanding ; and that they are absolutely necessary 
in the conduct of life. 

Now, every judgment of this kind we form is only a 
particular application of the general principle, that in- 
telligence, wisdom, and other mental qualities in the 
cause, may be inferred from their marks or signs in the 
effect. The actions and discourses of men are effects, 
of which the actors and speakers are the causes. The 
effects are perceived by our senses ; but the causes are 
behind the scene. We only conclude their existence 
and their degrees from our observation of the effects. 
From wise conduct we infer wisdom in the cause ; 
from brave actions we infer courage ; and so in other 
cases. 

This inference is made with perfect security by all 
men. We cannot avoid it ; it is necessary in the or- 
dinary conduct of life ; it has therefore the strongest 
marks of being a first principle. 

Perhaps some may think that this principle may be 
learned either by reasoning, or by experience, and there- 
fore that there is no ground to think it a first principle. 

If it can be shown to be got by reasoning, by all or 
the greater part of those who are governed by it, I shall 
very readily acknowledge that it ought not to be es- 
teemed a first principle. But I apprehend the contrary 
appears from very convincing arguments. 

First. The principle is too universal to be the effect 
of reasoning. It is common to philosophers and to the 
vulgar ; to the learned and to the most illiterate ; to 
the civilized and to the savage : and of those who are 



412 JUDGMENT. 

governed by it, not one in ten thousand can give a rea- 
son for it. 

Secondly. We find philosophers, ancient and modern, 
who can reason excellently on subjects that admit of 
reasoning, when they have occasion to defend this prin- 
ciple, not offering reasons for it, or any medium of proof, 
but appealing to the common sense of mankind ; men- 
tioning particular instances, to make the absurdity of 
the contrary opinion more, apparent, and sometimes 
using the weapons of wit and ridicule, which are very 
proper weapons for refuting absurdities, but altogether 
improper in points that are to be determined by rea- 
soning. 

To confirm this observation, I shall quote two au- 
thors, an ancient and a modern, who have more ex- 
pressly undertaken the defence of this principle than 
any others I remember to have met with, and whose 
good sense and ability to reason, where reasoning is 
proper, will not be doubted. 

The first is Cicero, whose words, Lib. I. Cap. 13, De 
Divinatione, may be thus translated : — " Can any thing 
done by chance have all the marks of design ? Four 
dice may, by chance, turn up four aces ; but do you 
think that four hundred dice, thrown by chance, will 
turn up four hundred aces ? Colors thrown upon can- 
vas without design may have some similitude to a hu- 
man face ; but do you think they might make as beau- 
tiful a picture as that of the Coan Venus? A hog 
turning up the ground with his nose may make some- 
thing of the form of the letter A ; but do you think that 
a hog might describe on the ground the ' Andromache' 
of Ennius ? Carneades imagined, that in the stone 
quarries at Chios he found, in a stone that was split, a 
representation of the head of a little Pan, or sylvan 
deity. I believe he might find a figure not unlike ; but 
surely not such a one as you would say had been 
formed by an excellent sculptor like Scopas. For so, 
verily, the case is, that chance never perfectly imitates 
design." Thus Cicero.* 

* See also his De Natura Deorum, Lib. II. Cap. 37. — H. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 413 

Now, in all this discourse, I see very good sense, and 
what is apt to convince every unprejudiced mind ; but 
I see not in the whole a single step of reasoning. It is 
barely an appeal to every man's common sense. 

Let us next see how the same point is handled by 
the excellent Archbishop Tillotson, Works, Vol. I. Ser- 
mon I. — " For I appeal to any man of reason, whether 
any thing can be more unreasonable, than obstinately 
to impute an effect to chance which carries on the face 
of it all the arguments and characters of design ? Was 
ever any considerable work, in which there was required 
a great variety of parts, and an orderly and regular ad- 
justment of these parts, done by chance ? Will chance 
fit means to ends, and that in ten thousand instances, 
and not fail in any one ? How often might a man, 
after he had jumbled a set of letters in a bag, fling 
them out upon the ground before they would fall into 
an exact poem, yea, or so much as make a good dis- 
course in prose ? And may not a little book be as 
easily made as this great volume of the world ? How 
long might a man sprinkle colors upon canvas with a 
careless hand before they would make the exact picture 
of a man ? And is a man easier made by chance than 
his picture ? How long might twenty thousand blind 
men, which should be sent out from the remote parts of 
England, wander up and down before they would all 
meet upon Salisbury plains, and fall into rank and file 
in the exact order of an army ? And yet this is much 
more easy to be imagined than how the innumerable 
blind parts of the matter should rendezvous themselves 
into a world. A man that sees Henry the Seventh's 
chapel at Westminster might with as good reason 
maintain (yea, and much better, considering the vast 
difference between that little structure and the huge 
fabric of the world), that it was never contrived or built 
by any man, but that the stones did by chance grow 
into those curious figures into which we see them to 
have been cut and graven ; and that upon a time (as 
tales usually begin), the materials of that building, the 
stone, mortar, timber, iron, lead, and glass, happily met 
35* 



414 JUDGMENT. 

together, and very fortunately ranged themselves into 
that delicate order in which we see them now so close 
compacted, that it must be a very great chance that 
parts them again. What would the world think of a 
man that should advance such an opinion as this, and 
write a book for it ? If they would do him right, they 
ought to look upon him as mad." 

In this passage, the excellent author takes what I 
conceive to be the proper method of refuting an absurd- 
ity, by exposing it in different lights, in which every 
man of common understanding perceives it to be ridic- 
ulous. And although there is much good sense, as well 
as wit, in the passage I have quoted, I cannot find one 
medium of proof in the whole. 

I have met with one or two respectable authors who 
draw an argument from the doctrine of chances, to 
show how improbable it is that a regular arrangement 
of parts should be the effect of chance, or that it should 
not be the effect of design. I do not object to this 
reasoning ; but I would observe, that the doctrine of 
chances is a branch of mathematics little more than a 
hundred years old, while the conclusion in question has 
been held by all men from the beginning of the world. 
It cannot, therefore, be thought, that men were origi- 
nally led to this conclusion by that reasoning. Indeed, 
it may be doubted whether the first principle upon 
which all the mathematical reasoning about chances 
is grounded is more self-evident than this conclusion 
drawn from it, or whether it is not a particular instance 
of that general conclusion. 

We are next to consider whether we may not learn 
from experience, that effects which have all the marks 
and tokens of design must proceed from a designing 
cause. 

I apprehend that we cannot learn this truth from ex- 
perience, for two reasons. 

First. Because it is a necessary truth, not a contin- 
gent one. It agrees with the experience of mankind 
since the beginning of the world, that the area of a 
triangle is equal to half the rectangle under its base 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 



415 



and perpendicular. It agrees no less with experience, 
that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. So 
far as experience goes, these truths are upon an equal 
footing. But every man perceives this distinction be- 
tween them, that the first is a necessary truth, and that 
it is impossible it should not be true; but the last is 
not necessary, but contingent, depending upon the will 
of Him who made the world. As we cannot learn 
from experience that twice three must necessarily make 
six, so neither can we learn from experience that certain 
effects must proceed from a designing and intelligent 
cause. Experience informs us only of what has been, 
but never of what must be. 

Secondly. It may be observed, that experience can 
show a connection between a sign, and the thing signi- 
fied by it, in those cases only, where both the sign and 
the thing signified are perceived, and have always been 
perceived in conjunction. But if there be any case 
where the sign only is perceived, experience can never 
show its connection with the thing signified. Thus, 
for example, thought is a sign of a thinking principle 
or mind. But how do we know that thought cannot 
be without a mind ? If any man should say that he 
knows this by experience, he deceives himself. It is 
impossible he can have any experience of this ; because, 
though we have an immediate knowledge of the ex- 
istence of thought in ourselves by consciousness, yet 
we have no immediate knowledge of a mind. The 
mind is not an immediate object either of sense or of 
consciousness. We may therefore justly conclude, that 
the necessary connection between thought and a mind, 
or thinking being, is not learned from experience. 

The same reasoning may be applied to the connec- 
tion between a work excellently fitted for some pur- 
pose, and design in the author or cause of that work. 
One of these — to wit, the work — may be an imme- 
diate object of perception. But the design and purpose 
of the author c'annot be an immediate object of per- 
ception ; and therefore experience can never inform us 
of any connection between the one and the other, far 
less of a necessary connection. 



416 JUDGMENT. 

Thus I think it appears, that the principle we have 
been considering — to wit, that, from certain signs or 
indications in the effect, we may infer that there must 
have been intelligence, wisdom, or other intellectual or 
moral qualities in the cause — is a principle which we 
get neither by reasoning nor by experience ; and there- 
fore, if it be a true principle, it must be a first princi- 
ple. There is in the human understanding a light, by 
which we see immediately the evidence of it, when 
there is occasion to apply it. 

Of how great importance this principle is in com- 
mon life, we have already observed. And I need 
hardly mention its importance in natural theology. 
The clear marks and signatures of wisdom, power, and 
goodness, in the constitution and government of the 
world, is, of all arguments that have been advanced 
for the being and providence of the Deity, that which 
in all ages has made the strongest impression upon 
candid and thinking minds ; an argument which has 
this peculiar advantage, that it gathers strength as 
human knowledge advances, and is more convincing at 
present than it was some centuries ago. King Alphonso 
might say, that he could contrive a better planetary 
system than that which astronomers held in his day.* 
That system was not the work of God, but the fiction 
of men. But since the true system of the sun, moon, 
and planets has been discovered, no man, however 
atheistically disposed, has pretended to show how a 
better could be contrived. 

When we attend to the marks of good contrivance 
which appear in the works of God, every discovery we 
make in the constitution of the material or intellectual 
system becomes a hymn of praise to the great Creator 
and Governor of the world. And a man who is pos- 



* Alphonso X. of Castile. He flourished in the thirteenth century, — 
a great mathematician and astronomer. To him we owe the Alphonsine 
Tables. His saying was not so pious and philosophical as Reid states ; 
but that, " had he been present with God at the creation,' he could have 
supplied some useful hints towards the better ordering of the universe." 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 417 

sessed of the genuine spirit of philosophy will think it 
impiety to contaminate the Divine workmanship, by 
mixing it with those fictions of human fancy called 
theories and hypotheses, which will always bear the 
signatures of human folly, no less than the other bears 
those of Divine wisdom. 

I know of no person who ever called in question the 
principle now under our consideration, when it is ap- 
plied to the actions and discourses of men : for this 
would be to deny that we have any means of discern- 
ing a wise man from an idiot, or a man that is illiter- 
ate in the highest degree from a man of knowledge 
and learning, which no man has had the effrontery to 
do. But, in all ages, those who have been unfriendly 
to the principles of religion have made attempts to 
weaken the force of the argument for the existence and 
perfections of the Deity, which is founded on this prin- 
ciple. That argument has got the name of the Argu- 
ment from Final Causes ; and, as the meaning of this 
name is well understood, we shall use it. 

The argument from final causes, when reduced to a 
syllogism, has these two premises : — First, that design 
and intelligence in the cause may, with certainly, be in- 
ferred from marks or signs of them in the effect. This 
is the principle we have been considering, and we may 
call it the major proposition of the argument. The 
second, which we call the minor proposition, is, that 
there are in fact the clearest marks of design and wis- 
dom in the works of nature. The conclusion is, that the 
works of nature are the effects of a wise and intelligent 
cause. One must either assent to the conclusion, or 
deny one or other of the premises. 

Those among the ancients who denied a God or a 
providence seem to me to have yielded the major prop- 
osition, and to have denied the minor ; conceiving that 
there are not in the constitution of things such marks 
of wise contrivance as are sufficient to put the conclu- 
sion beyond doubt. This, I think, we may learn from 
the reasoning of Cotta the Academic, in the third book 
of Cicero, Of the Nature of the Gods. 



418 



JUDGMENT. 



The gradual advancement made in the knowledge of 
nature has put this opinion quite out of countenance. 
When the structure of the human body was much less 
known than it is now, the famous Galen saw such 
evident marks of wise contrivance in it, that, though 
he had been educated an Epicurean, he renounced that 
system, and wrote his book Of the Use of the Parts of 
the Human Body, on purpose to convince others of 
what appeared so clear to himself, that it was impos- 
sible that such admirable contrivance should be the 
effect of chance. Those, therefore, of later times, who 
are dissatisfied with this argument from final causes, 
have quitted the stronghold of the ancient atheists, 
which had become untenable, and have chosen rather 
to make a defence against the major proposition. 

Descartes seems to have led the "way in this, though 
he was no atheist. But, having invented some new 
arguments for the being of God, he was perhaps led to 
disparage those that ■ had been used before, that he 
might bring more credit to his own* Or perhaps he 



* The following succinct statement of Descartes's proofs of a Deity is 
translated from the Dictionnaire des Sciences Philosophiques, Art. Dieu. 

" The ontological proof , as it is called by Kant, has for its principle the 
idea of an absolutely perfect being. It was first adduced in the Proslogiurn. 
of St. Anselm, the argument of which, originally conceived under the 
form of a prayer, may be stated thus : — All men have-the idea of God, — 
even those who deny it : for they cannot deny that of which they have no 
idea. The idea of God is the idea of a being absolutely perfect, one 
whom we cannot imagine to have a superior. Now the idea of such a 
being necessarily implies existence ; otherwise we might imagine another 
being, who, by tile superaddition of existence to the perfection of the first, 
would thereby excel him ; that is to say, excel one who, by supposition, is 
absolutely perfect. Consequently, we cannot conceive the idea of God 
without being constrained to believe that he exists. Descartes, evidently 
without any acquaintance with his predecessor of the eleventh century, 
fell on the same proof; but, by the manner in which he developed it, he 
has made it more legitimate, and saved it, in advance, from the formidable 
objection of Kant. In fact, the philosopher of the Middle Age, and, fol- 
lowing in the same steps, Cudworth and Leibnitz, confined themselves 
wholly to the idea of perfection, thinking to make the notion of existence 
come out of that alone by way of deduction and analysis ; but they did 
not show how this idea is indissolubly connected with experience, or the 
perception of reality, that is to say, of facts, and imposed on our mind as 
the condition even of reality and of facts, as a necessary and irresistible 
belief, and not as a pure conception, or a supposition invented at pleasure. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 419 

was offended with the Peripatetics, because they often 
mixed final causes with physical, in order to account 
for the phenomena of nature. 

What they failed to do, Descartes has done. Taking for his point of de- 
parture an incontestable fact, an immediate verity, our own existence, 
Descartes ascends to the belief in a being absolutely perfect. The latter 
belief is not deduced from the former ; it is given us, it is imposed upon us, 
immediately and at the same time with the former. The Cartesian argu- 
ment under its first form, such as we find it in the Discourse de la Mithode, 
may be expressed, thus : — As soon as I perceive myself, an imperfect 
being, to exist, I have the idea of a perfect being, and am under the neces- 
sity of admitting that this idea has been imparted to me by a being who is 
actually perfect, who really possesses all the perfections of which I have 
some idea, — that is to say, who is God. In another place (3 e Meditation) 
Descartes has combined the idea of perfection with the principle of cau- 
sality : — I do not exist by myself; for if I were the cause of my own ex- 
istence I should have given myself all the perfections of which I have an 
idea. I exist then by another, and this being by whom I exist is all- 
perfect ; otherwise I should be able to apply to him the same reasoning 
which I have just applied to myself. It is the argument of St. Anselm, 
and not that of Descartes, which Leibnitz has reduced to the form of a 
regular syllogism, and which has since been attacked by Kant, in his Critic 
of Pure Reason. The syllogism of Leibnitz is as follows : — A being from 
lohose essence we can conclude existence, exists in fact, if it is possible. This 
proposition, as it is an identical axiom, needs no proof. Now God is such 
a being that we can infer from his essence his existence. This, also, as it is 
the definition of God, stands in no need of proofs. Therefore, if God is 
possible, God exists. — Nouveaux JEssais, Liv. IV. § 7. Here, however, it 
is proper to remark that what Leibnitz thought to add to the Proslogium 
had been added before by Cudworth, using nearly the same words. — Intel- 
lectual System, Chap. V. Sect. I., Harrison : s edit., Vol. III. p. 39. 

" Another proof, wholly due to Descartes (Discours de la Mithode, 4 e 
Partie, and 3 e Meditation), is that which is drawn from the idea of the in- 
finite. It has received from the author of the Meditations the same form 
as the preceding, with which it is blended. It is presented to us, therefore, 
as an immediate or first principle of reason, of which we have cognizance 
as soon as we arrive at consciousness of ourselves, and which we can no 
more call into doubt than our own existence. At the same time, says 
Descartes, that I perceive myself as a finite being, I have the idea of an 
infinite being. This idea, from which I cannot withdraw myself, and 
which is derived from no other idea, comes to me neither from myself nor 
from any other finite being ; for how could the finite produce the idea of 
the infinite ? Therefore it has been imparted to me by a being really in- 
finite. Hence we see that the Infinite, such as Descartes conceives it, is 
not an abstract notion, applicable indiscriminately to all things ; it is the 
very principle of our ideas, — that is to say, of reason and of thought." 

See the same article for a statement of three other forms of the meta- 
physical argument for the Divine existence. This argument is not in favor 
among English theologians generally ; but those who have adopted it are 
among the most distinguished, — such as Henry More, Dr. Samuel 
Clarke, and Bishop Butler. The popular objections chiefly insisted on at 
the present day are not new. See also L. F. Ancillon, Judicium de Judiciis 



420 JUDGMENT. 

He maintained, therefore, that physical causes only 
should be assigned for phenomena ; that the philoso- 
pher has nothing to do with final causes ; and that it 
is presumption in us to pretend to determine for what 
end any work of nature is framed. Some of those 
who were great admirers of Descartes, and followed 
him in many points, differed from him in this, particu- 
larly Dr. Henry More and the pious Archbishop Fene- 
lon : but others, after the example of Descartes, have 
shown a contempt of all reasoning from final causes. 
Among these, I think, we may reckon Maupertuis and 
Buffon. But the most direct attack has been made 
upon this principle by Mr. Hume, who puts an argu- 
ment in the mouth of an Epicurean, on which he seems 
to lay great stress. 

The argument is, that the universe is a singular 
effect, and therefore we can draw no conclusion from 
it, whether it may have been made by wisdom or not. 
If I understand the force of this argument, it amounts 
to this, — that if we had been accustomed to see 
worlds produced, some by wisdom and others ivilhout it, 
and had observed that such a world as this which we 
inhabit was always the effect of wisdom, we might 
then, from past experience, conclude that this world 
was made by wisdom ; but having no such experience, 
we have no means of forming any conclusion about it. 

That this is the strength of the argument appears, 
because, if the marks of wisdom seen in one world be 
no evidence of wisdom, the like marks seen in ten 
thousand will give as little evidence, unless, in time 
past, we perceived ivisdom itself conjoined with the 
tokens of it ; and, from their perceived conjunction 
in time past, conclude, that although, in the present 
world, we see only one of the two, the other must ac- 
company it. 

circa Argumentum Cartesium pro Existentia Dei; Bouchitte, Histoire des 
Preiwes de VExistence de Dieu, published in Memoires de I'Acadenv'e Eoyale 
des Sciences Morales et Politiques, Tome I., Savants Etrangers ; Crombie's 
Natural Theology, Chap. I.; Turton's Natural Theology considered with Ref- 
erence to Lord Brougha7n's Discourse on that Subject, Sect. V. — Ed. 



FIRST PRINCIPLES. 421 

Whence it appears, that this reasoning of Mr. Hume 
is built on the supposition, that our inferring design 
from the strongest marks of it is entirely owing to our 
past experience of having; always found these two things 
conjoined. But I hope I have made it evident that this 
is not the case. And indeed it is evident, that, accord- 
ing to this reasoning, we can have no evidence of mind 
or design in any of our fellow-men. 

How do I know that any man of my acquaintance 
has understanding? I never saw his understanding. 
I see only certain effects, which my judgment leads me 
to conclude to be marks and tokens of it. 

But, says the skeptical philosopher, you can conclude 
nothing from these tokens, unless past experience has 
informed you that such tokens are always joined with 
understanding. Alas! Sir, it is impossible I can ever 
have this experience. The understanding of another 
man is no immediate object of sight, or of any other 
faculty which God has given me ; and unless I can 
conclude its existence from tokens that are visible, I 
have no evidence that there is understanding in any 
man. 

It seems, then, that the man who maintains that 
there is no force in the argument from final causes, 
must, if he will be consistent, see no evidence of the 
existence of any intelligent being but himself.* 

* Compare Kant's Critic of Pure Reason, Third Division of the Second 
Book of Transcendental Dialectic ; Lord Brougham's Discourse on Natural 
Theology, Part I.; Baden Powell's Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, 
Sect III., IV. ; Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, Part I. Book 
IX. Chap. VI. ; Hume's Dialogues concerning Natural Religion ; Irons's 
Whole Doctrine of Final Causes; Bowen's Lowell Lectures, Lect. IX. See, 
also, the works by Bouchitte, Crombie, and Turton, referred to in the last 
note. —Ed. 



36 



ESSAY VII. 

OF REASONING 



CHAPTER I. 

OF REASONING IN GENERAL, AND OF DEMONSTRATION. 

I. Of Reasoning' in General, as distinguished from 
Judgment] The power of reasoning is very nearly al- 
lied to that of judging ; and it is of little consequence 
in the common affairs of life to distinguish them nicely. 
On this account, the same name is often given to both. 
We include both under the name of reason* The as- 

* " Reason (Aoyos, ratio, raison, Vernunft) is a very vague, vacillating:, and 
equivocal word. Throwing aside various accidental significations which it 
has obtained in particular languages, as in Greek denoting not only the 
ratio, but the oratio, of the Latins ; throwing aside its employment, in most 
languages, for cause, motive, argument, principle of probation, or middle term 
of a syllogism, and considering it only as a philosophical word denoting a 
faculty, or complement of faculties ; — in this relation it is found employed 
in the following meanings, not only by different individuals, but frequently, 
to a greater or less extent, by the same philosopher. 

"It has, both in ancient and modern times, been very commonly em- 
ployed, like understanding and intellect, to denote our intelligent nature in 
general (\oyiKov p.epos) ; and this usually as distinguished from the lower 
cognitive faculties, as sense, imagination, memory, — but always, and em- 
phatically, as in contrast to the feelings and desires. In this signification, 
to follow the Aristotelic division, it comprehends, — 1°, conception, or simple 
apprehension (evvota, votjctls tu>v a8icupeTG>v, conceptus, conceptio, apprehensio 
simplex, das Begreifen) ; — 2°, the compositive and divisive process, affirmation 
and negation, judgment (avvde&is ical 8iaipecris, dirocjiavo'is, judicium) ; — 3°, 
reasoning or the discursive faculty (biavoia, \6yos, \oyio~pos, rb truXXoyt- 
£ecrdai, discursus, ratiocinatio) ; — 4°, intellect or intelligence proper either as 
the intuition, or as the place, of principles or self-evident truths (vovs, in- 
tellectus, intelligentia, mens). 

" It has not unfreqnently been employed to comprehend the third and 
fourth of the special functions above enumerated, — to wit, the dianoetic 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 423 

sent we give to a proposition is called judgment, wheth- 
er the proposition be self-evident, or derive its evi- 
dence by reasoning from other propositions. Yet there 
is a distinction between reasoning and judging. Rea- 
soning is the process by which we pass from one judg- 
ment to another which is the consequence of it. Accord- 



and noetic. In this meaning it is taken by Reid in his later works. Thus, 
in the Intellectual Powers, he states that reason, in its first office or degree 
(the noetic), is identical with common sense, — in its second (the dianoetic), 
with reasoning. 

" It has very generally, both in ancient and modem philosophy, been 
employed for the third of the above special functions ; — Xoyos and Xoyioyxos', 
ratio and ratiocinatio, reason and reasoning, being thus compounded. 

" In the ancient systems it was very rarely used exclusively for the fourth 
special function, the noetic, in contrast to the dianoetic. Aristotle, indeed 
(Eth. Nic, Lib. VI. c. 12; Eth. End., Lib. V. c. 8), expressly says that 
reason is not the faculty of principles, that faculty being intelligence proper. 
Boethius (De Cons. Phil , Lib. V. Pr. 5 ) states that reason or discursive in- 
tellect belongs to man, while intelligence or intuitive intellect is the exclusive 
attribute of Divinity ; while Porphyry somewhere says that ' we have intel- 
ligence in common with the gods, and reason in common with the brutes.' 
Sometimes, however, it was apparently so employed. Thus St. Augustine 
seems to view reason as the. faculty of intuitive truths, and as opposed to 
reasoning (De Quant. An., § 53 ; De Immort. An., §§ 1, 10). This, however, 
is almost a singular exception. 

" In modern times, though we frequently meet with reason, as a general 
faculty, distinguished from reasoning, as a particular, yet, until Kant, I am 
not aware that reason ( Vernunft) was ever exclusively, or even emphatically, 
used in a signification corresponding to the noetic faculty, in its strict and 
special meaning, and opposed to understanding (Verstand) viewed as com- 
prehending the other functions of thought, — unless Crusius ( Weg, &c, 
§ 62 etseq.) maybe regarded as Kant's forerunner in this innovation. In- 
deed, the Vernunft of Kant, in its special signification (for he also uses it 
for reason in the first or more general meaning, as indeed nothing can be 
more vague and various than his employment of the word), cannot without 
considerable qualification be considered analogous to vovs, far less to com- 
mon sense; though his usurpation of the term for the faculty of princi/iles 
probably determined Jacobi (who had originally, like philosophers in gen- 
eral, confounded Vernunft with Verstand, reason with reasoning) to appro- 
priate the term reason to what he had at first opposed to it, under the name 
of belief ( Glaube) . 

" Kant's abusive employment of the term reason, for the faculty of the 
Unconditioned, determined also its adoption, under the same signification, 
in the philosophy of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel ; though vovs, intellectus, 
intelligent ia, which had been applied by the Platonists in a similar sense, 
were Cthrough Verstand, by which they had been always rendered into 
German) the only words suitable to express that cognition of the Absolute, 
in which subject and object, knowledge and existence, God and man, are 
supposed to be identified." 

Abridged from Sir W. Hamilton's Note A, § 5. — Ed. 



424 REASONING. 

ingly, our judgments are distinguished into intuitive, 
which are not grounded upon any preceding judgment, 
and discursive, which are deduced from some preceding 
judgment by reasoning. 

In all reasoning, therefore, there must be a proposi- 
tion inferred, and one or more from which it is inferred. 
And this power of inferring, or drawing a conclusion, is 
only another name for reasoning ; the proposition in- 
ferred being called the conclusion, and the proposition 
or propositions from which it is inferred, the premises. 

Reasoning may consist of many steps ; the first con- 
clusion being a premise to a second, that to a third, 
and so on, till we come to the last conclusion. A pro- 
cess consisting of many steps of this kind is so easily 
distinguished from judgment, that it is never called by 
that name. But when there is only a single step to the 
conclusion, the distinction is less obvious, and the pro- 
cess is sometimes called judgment, sometimes reason- 
ing- 
It is not strange, that, in common discourse, judg- 
ment and reasoning should not be very nicely distin- 
guished, since they are in some cases confounded even 
by logicians. We are taught in logic, that judgment 
is expressed by one proposition, but that reasoning re- 
quires two or three. But so various are the modes of 
speech, that what in one mode is expressed by two or 
three propositions may in another mode be expressed 
by one. Thus I may say, God is good; therefore good 
men shall be happy. This is reasoning, of that kind 
which logicians call an enthymem, consisting of an an- 
tecedent proposition, and a conclusion drawn from it. 
But this reasoning may be expressed by one proposi- 
tion, thus : Because God is good, good men shall, be 
happy. This is what they call a causal proposition, and 
therefore expresses judgment ; yet the enthymem, which 
is reasoning, expresses no more. 

Reasoning, as well as judgment, must be true or 
false ; both are grounded upon evidence which may be 
probable or demonstrative, and both are accompanied 
with assent or belief. 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 425 

The power of reasoning is justly accounted one of 
the prerogatives of human nature ; because by it many 
important truths have been and may be discovered, 
which without it would be beyond our reach ; yet it 
seems to be only a kind of crutch to a limited under 
standing. We can conceive an understanding, superior 
to human, to which that truth appears intuitively which 
we can only discover by reasoning. For this cause, 
though we must ascribe judgment to the Almighty, 
we do not ascribe reasoning to him, because it implies 
some defect or limitation of understanding. Even 
among men, to use reasoning in things that are self- 
evident is trifling ; like a man going upon crutches 
when he can walk upon his legs. 

What reasoning is can be understood only by a man 
who has reasoned, and who is capable of reflecting 
upon this operation of his own mind. We can define 
it only by synonymous words or phrases, such as infer- 
ring, drawing a conclusion, and the like. The very no- 
tion of reasoning, therefore, can enter into the mind by 
no other channel than that of reflecting upon the opera- 
tion of reasoning in our own minds ; and the notions 
of premises and conclusion, of a syllogism and all its 
constituent parts, of an enthymem, sorites, demonstra- 
tion, paralogism, and many others, have the same ori- 
gin- 

The exercise of reasoning on various subjects, not 
only strengthens the faculty, but furnishes the mind 
with a store of materials. Every train of reasoning 
which is familiar becomes a beaten track in the way to 
many others. It removes many obstacles which lay in 
our way, and smooths many roads which we may have 
occasion to travel in future disquisitions. When men 
of equal natural parts apply their reasoning power to 
any subject, the man who has reasoned much on the 
same or on similar subjects has a like advantage over 
him who has not, as the mechanic who has store of 
tools for his work has over him who has his tools to 
make, or even to invent. 

In a train of reasoning, the evidence of every step, 
36* 



426 REASONING. 

where nothing is left to be supplied by the reader or 
hearer, must be immediately discernible to every man of 
ripe understanding who has a distinct comprehension of 
the premises and conclusion, and who compares them to- 
gether. To be able to comprehend, in one view, a com- 
bination of steps of this kind, is more difficult, and 
seems to require a superior natural ability. In all, it 
may be much improved by habit. 

But the highest talent in reasoning is the invention of 
proofs ; by which, truths remote from the premises are 
brought to light. In all works of understanding, inven- 
tion has the highest praise ; it requires an extensive 
view of what relates to the subject, and a quickness in 
discerning those affinities and relations which may be 
subservient to the purpose. 

In all invention there must be some end in view : and 
sagacity in finding out the road that leads to this end 
is, I think, what we call invention. In this chiefly, as I 
apprehend, and in clear and distinct conceptions, con- 
sists that superiority of understanding which we call 
genius. 

In every chain of reasoning, the evidence of the last 
conclusion can be no greater than that of the weakest 
link of the chain, whatever may be the strength of the 
rest. 

II. Of Demonstrative Reasoning.] The most remark- 
able distinction of reasonings is, that some are probable, 
others demonstrative. 

In every step of demonstrative reasoning, the infer- 
ence is necessary, and we perceive it to be impossible 
that the conclusion should not follow from the premises. 
In probable reasoning, the connection between the 
premises and the conclusion is not necessary, nor do we 
perceive it to be impossible that the first should be true 
while the last is false. 

Hence demonstrative reasoning has no degrees, nor 
can one demonstration be stronger than another, though, 
in relation to our faculties, one may be more easily 
comprehended than another. Every demonstration 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 427 

gives equal strength to the conclusion, and leaves no 
possibility of its being false. 

It was, I think, the opinion of all the ancients, that 
demonstrative reasoning can be applied only to truths 
that are necessary, and not to those that are contin- 
gent. In this, I believe, they judged right. Of all 
created things, the existence, the attributes, and conse- 
quently the relations resulting from those attributes, are 
contingent. They depend upon the will and power of 
him who made them. These are matters of fact, and 
admit not of demonstration. 

The field of demonstrative reasoning, therefore, is 
the various relations of things abstract, that is, of things 
which we conceive, without regard to their existence. 
Of these, as they are conceived by the mind, and are 
nothing but what they are conceived to be, we may 
have a clear and adequate comprehension. Their re- 
lations, and attributes are necessary and immutable. 
They are the things to which the Pythagoreans and 
Platonists gave the name of ideas. 1 would beg leave 
to borrow this meaning of the word idea from those 
ancient philosophers, and then I must agree with them, 
that ideas are the only objects about which we can 
reason demonstratively. 

There are many even of our ideas about which we can 
carry on no considerable train of reasoning. Though 
they be ever so well defined and perfectly comprehend- 
ed, yet their agreements and disagreements are few, 
and these are discerned at once. We may go a step 
or two in forming a conclusion with regard to such ob- 
jects, but can go no farther. There are others, about 
which we may, by a long train of demonstrative reason- 
ing, arrive at conclusions very remote and unexpected. 

The reasonings I have met with that can be called 
strictly demonstrative may, I think, be reduced to two 
classes. They are either metaphysical, or they are math- 
ematical. 

In metaphysical reasoning, the process is always 
short. The conclusion is but a step or two, seldom 
more, from the first principle or axiom on which it is 



428 REASONING. 

grounded, and the different conclusions depend not one 
upon another. 

It is otherwise in mathematical reasoning. Here the 
field has no limits. One proposition leads on to another, 
that to a third, and so on without end. 

If it should be asked, why demonstrative reasoning 
has so wide a field in mathematics, while, in other 
abstract subjects, it is confined within very narrow 
limits, I conceive this is chiefly owing to the nature of 
quantity, the object of mathematics. 

Every quantity, as it has magnitude, and is divisible 
into parts without end, so, in respect of its magnitude, 
it has a certain ratio to every quantity of the kind. 
The ratios of quantities are innumerable, such as, a 
half, a third, a tenth, double, triple. All the powers of 
number are insufficient to express the variety of ratios. 
For there are innumerable ratios which cannot be per- 
fectly expressed by numbers, such as the ratio of the 
side to the diagonal of a square, of the circumference 
of a circle to the diameter. Of this infinite variety of 
ratios, every one may be clearly conceived, and dis- 
tinctly expressed, so as to be in no danger of being mis- 
taken for any other. Extended quantities, such as 
lines, surfaces, solids, besides the variety of relations 
they have in respect of magnitude, have no less variety 
in respect of figure; and every mathematical figure 
may be accurately defined, so as to distinguish it from 
all others. 

There is nothing of this kind in other objects of ab- 
stract reasoning. Some of them have various degrees ; 
but these are not capable of measure, nor can they be said 
to have an assignable ratio to others of the kind. They 
are either simple, or compounded of a few indivisible 
parts ; and therefore, if we may be allowed the expres- 
sion, can touch only in few points. But mathematical 
quantities, being made up of parts without number, can 
touch in innumerable points, and be compared in innu- 
merable different ways. 

There have been attempts made to measure the merit 
of actions by the ratios of the affections and principles 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 



429 



of action from which they proceed. This may, per- 
haps, in the way of analogy, serve to illustrate what 
was before known ; but I do not think any truth can 
be discovered in this way. There are, no doubt, de- 
grees of benevolence, self-love, and other affections ; 
but when we apply ratios to them, I apprehend we 
have no distinct meaning.* 

Some demonstrations are called direct, others indirect. 
The first kind leads directly to the conclusion to be 
proved. Of the indirect, some are called demonstra- 
tions ad absurdum. In these the proposition contradic- 
tory to that which is to be proved is demonstrated to 
be false, or to lead to an absurdity ; whence it follows, 
that its contradictory, that is, the proposition to be 
proved, is true. This inference is grounded upon an 
axiom in logic, that, of two contradictory propositions, 
if one be false, the other must be true.f 

* Mr. J. S. Mill, jji his ingenious chapter, Of Demonstration and Neces- 
sary Truths, says : — " The opinion of Dugald Stewart respecting the 
foundations of geometry is, I conceive, substantially correct ; — that it is 
built iipon hypotheses ; that it owes to this alone the peculiar certainty 
supposed to distinguish it ; and that in any science whatever, by reasoning 
from a set of hypotheses, we may obtain a body of conclusions as certain 
as tbose of geometry, that is, as strictly in accordance with the hypotheses, 
and as irresistibly compelling assent on condition that those hypotheses are 
true " He allows, however, that the opponents of Stewart have greatly 
the advantage of him on another important point in the theory of geomet- 
rical reasoning, — the necessity of admitting as first principles axioms as 
well as definitions. " The axioms," he says, " as well those which are in- 
demonstrable as those which admit of being demonstrated, differ from that 
other class of fundamental principles which are involved in the definitions, 
in this, that, they are true without any mixture of hypothesis." " It re- 
mains to inquire, what is the ground of our belief in axioms ? — what is 
the evidence on which they rest 1 I answer, they arc experimental truths ; 
generalizations from observation. The proposition, Two straight lines can- 
not inclose a space, — or, in other words, Two straight lines which have once 
met do not meet again, bid continue to diverge, — is an induction from the evi- 
dence of our senses." According to Mill, therefore, ail truths, including 
mathematical truth, are either empirical or hypothetical. 

For a brilliant polemic on this whole subject, see Stewart, Elements, 
Part II. Chap. IV. ; Whewell's Mechanical Euclid, to ichich are added, Re- 
marks on Mathematical Reasoning, and his Philosophy of the Inductive Sci- 
ences, Part I Book II. ; Edinburgh Revieiv, Vol. LXVII. p. 81 et seq ; 
Quarterly Revieiv, Vol. LXVIll. p. 177 et seq.; Mill's Logic, Book II. 
Chap. V., VI. — Ed. 

t This is called the principle of the excluded middle, — viz. between two 
contradictories. — H. 

The lex exclusi medii reads thus: — "Either a given judgment must be 
true of any subject, or its contradictory ; there is no middle course." — Ed. 



430 REASONING. 

Another kind of indirect demonstration proceeds by 
enumerating all the suppositions that can possibly be 
made concerning the proposition to be proved, and then 
demonstrating that all of them, excepting that which is 
to be proved, are false ; whence it follows, that the ex- 
cepted supposition is true. Thus one line is proved to 
be equal to another, by proving first that it cannot be 
greater, and then that it cannot be less : for it must be 
either greater, or less, or equal ; and two of these sup- 
positions being demonstrated to be false, the third must 
be true. 

All these kinds of demonstration are used in mathe- 
matics, and perhaps some others. They have all equal 
strength. The direct demonstration is preferred where 
it can be had, for this reason only, as I apprehend, that 
it is the shortest road to the conclusion. The nature 
of the evidence and its strength are the same in all : 
only we are conducted to it by different roads. 

III. How far Morality is capable of Demonstration.] 
What has been said of demonstrative reasoning may 
help us to judge of an opinion of Mr. Locke, advanced 
in several places of his Essay ; — to wit, " that morality 
is capable of demonstration as well as mathematics." 

In Book III. Chap. XL, having observed that, mixed 
modes, especially those belonging to morality, being 
such combinations of ideas as the mind puts together 
of its own choice, the signification of their names may 
be perfectly and exactly defined, he adds, § 16 : — 
" Upon this ground it is that I am bold to think, that 
morality is capable of demonstration as well as mathe- 
matics : since the precise real essence of the things 
moral words stand for may be perfectly known, and so 
the congruity or incongruity of the things themselves 
be certainly discovered, in which consists perfect knowl- 
edge. Nor let any one object, that the names of sub- 
stances are often to be made use of in morality, as well 
as those of modes, from which will arise obscurity ; for, 
as to substances, when concerned in moral discourses, 
their divers natures are not so much inquired into as 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 431 

supposed : v. g., when we say that man is subject to 
law, we mean nothing by man but a corporeal rational 
creature ; what the real essence or other qualities of 
that creature are, in this case, is no way considered." 

Again, in Book IV. Chap. III. § 18 : — " The idea of 
a Supreme Being, whose workmanship we are, and the 
idea of ourselves, being such as are clear in us, would, 
I suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such 
foundation of our duty and rules of action, as might 
place morality among the sciences capable of demon- 
stration. The relation of other modes may certainly 
be perceived, as well as those of number and exten- 
sion ; and I cannot see why they should not be capable 
of demonstration, if due methods were thought on to 
examine or pursue their agreement or disagreement." 

He afterwards gives as instances two propositions, as 
moral propositions of which we may be as certain as 
of any in mathematics ; and considers at large what 
may have given the advantage to the ideas of quantity, 
and made them be thought more capable of certainty 
and demonstration. 

Some of his learned correspondents, particularly his 
friend Mr. Molyneux, urged and importuned him to 
compose a system of morals according to the idea he 
had advanced in his Essay; and, in his answer to these 
solicitations, he only pleads other occupations, without 
suggesting any change of his opinion, or any great dif- 
ficulty in the execution of what was desired. 

Those philosophers who think that our determina- 
tions in morals are not real judgments, that right and 
wrong in human conduct are only certain feelings or 
sensations in the person who contemplates the action, 
must reject Mr. Locke's opinion without examination. 
For if the principles of morals be not a matter of judg- 
ment, but of feeling only, there can be no demonstra- 
tion of them ; nor can any other reason be given for 
them, but that men are so constituted by the Author of 
their being, as to contemplate with pleasure the actions 
we call virtuous, and with disgust those we call vicious. 
But if our determinations in morality be real judg- 



432 REASONING. 

merits, and, like all other judgments, be either true or 
false, it is not unimportant to understand upon what 
kind of evidence those judgments rest. 

The argument offered by Mr. Loeke, to show that 
morality is capable of demonstration, is, that " the pre- 
cise real essence of the things moral words stand for 
may be perfectly known, and so the congruity or incon- 
gruity of the things themselves be certainly discovered, 
in which consists perfect knowledge." The field of 
demonstration is the various relations of things con- 
ceived abstractly, of which we may have perfect and 
adequate conceptions ; and Mr. Locke, taking all the 
things which moral words stand for to be of this kind, 
concluded that morality is as capable of demonstration 
as mathematics. 

Now I acknowledge that the names of the virtues 
and vices, of right and obligation, of liberty and prop- 
erty, stand for things abstract, which may be accurately 
denned, or, at least, conceived as distinctly and ade- 
quately as mathematical quantities. And thence, in- 
deed, it follows, that their mutual relations may be 
perceived as clearly and certainly as mathematical 
truths. Of this Mr. Locke gives two pertinent exam- 
ples : the first, " Where there is no property, there is no 
injustice, is," says he, " a proposition as certain as any 
demonstration in Euclid." When injustice is defined 
to be a violation of property, it is as necessary a truth, 
that there can be no injustice where there is no prop- 
erty, as that you cannot take from a man that which 
he has not. The second example is, that " no govern- 
ment alloivs absolute liberty." This is a truth no less 
certain and necessary. But such abstract truths I 
would call metaphysical rather than moral. We give 
the name of mathematical to truths that express the 
relations of quantities considered abstractly ; all other 
abstract truths may be called metaphysical. But if 
those mentioned by Mr. Locke are to be called moral 
truths, I agree with him that there are many such that 
are necessarily true, and that have all the evidence that 
mathematical truths can have. 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 



433 



It ought, however, to be remembered, that, as was 
before observed, the relations of things abstract, per- 
ceivable by us, excepting those of mathematical quanti- 
ties, are few, and for the most part immediately dis- 
cerned, so as not to require that train of reasoning 
which we call demonstration. Their evidence resem- 
bles more that of mathematical axioms than mathe- 
matical propositions. This appears in the two proposi- 
tions given as examples by Mr. Locke. The first 
follows immediately from the definition of injustice ; 
the second, from the definition of government. Their 
evidence may more properly be called intuitive than 
demonstrative. And this I apprehend to be the case, 
or nearly the case, with all abstract truths that are not 
mathematical, for the reason given above. 

The propositions which I think are properly called 
moral, are those that affirm some moral obligation to 
be, or not to be, incumbent on one or more individual 
persons. To such propositions Mr. Locke's reasoning 
does not apply, because the subjects of the proposition 
are not things whose real essence may be perfectly 
known. They are the creatures of God ; their obliga- 
tion results from the constitution which God has given 
them, and the circumstances in which he has placed 
them. That an individual has such a constitution, and 
is placed in such circumstances, is not an abstract and 
necessary, but a contingent truth. It is a matter of 
fact, and therefore not capable of demonstrative evi- 
dence, which belongs only to necessary truths. 

If a man had not the faculty given him by God of 
perceiving certain things in conduct to be right, and 
others to be wrong, and of perceiving his obligation to 
do what is right, and not to do what is wrong, he would 
not be a moral and accountable being. If a man be 
endowed with such a faculty, there must be some 
things which, by this faculty, are immediately discerned 
to be right, and others to be wrong ; and therefore there 
must be in morals, as in other sciences, first principles, 
which do not derive their evidence from any antecedent 
principles, but may be said to be intuitively discerned. 
37 



434 REASONING. 

Moral truths, therefore, may be divided into two 
classes, — to wit, such as are self-evident to every man 
whose understanding and moral faculty are ripe, and 
such as are deduced by reasoning from those that are 
self-evident. If the first be not discerned without rea- 
soning, the last never can be by any reasoning. If any 
man could say with sincerity, that he is conscious of 
no obligation to consult his own present and future 
happiness ; to be faithful to his engagements ; to obey 
his Maker ; to injure no man ; I know not what rea- 
soning, either probable or demonstrative, I could use to 
convince him of any moral duty. As you cannot rea- 
son in mathematics with a man who denies the axioms, 
as little can you reason with a man in morals who 
denies the first principles of morals. The man who 
does not, by the light of his own mind, perceive some 
things in conduct to be right, and others to be wrong, 
is as incapable of reasoning about morals as a blind 
man is about colors. 

Every man knows certainly, that what he approves 
in other men he ought to do in like circumstances, and 
that he ought not to do what he condemns in other 
men. Every man knows that he ought, with candor, 
to use the best means of knowing his duty. To every 
man who has a conscience, these things are self-evi- 
dent. They are immediate dictates of our moral fac- 
ulty, which, is a part of the human constitution ; and 
every man condemns himself, whether he will or not, 
when he knowingly acts contrary to them. 

Thus I think it appears, that every man of common 
understanding knows certainly, and without reasoning, 
the ultimate ends he ought to pursue, and that reason- 
ing is necessary only to discover the most proper means 
of attaining them ; and in this, indeed, a good man 
may often be in doubt. Thus, a magistrate knows 
that it is his duty to promote the good of the commu- 
nity which has intrusted him with authority ; and to 
offer to prove this to him by reasoning would be to 
affront him. But whether such a scheme of conduct 
in his office, or another, may best serve that end, he 



OF DEMONSTRATION. 435 

may in many cases be doubtful. I believe, in such 
cases, he can very rarely have demonstrative evidence. 
His conscience determines the end he ought to pursue, 
and he has intuitive evidence that his end is good ; but 
prudence must determine the means of attaining that 
end ; and prudence can very rarely use demonstrative 
reasoning, but must rest in what appears most probable. 

Upon the whole, I agree with Mr. Locke, that propo- 
sitions expressing the congruities and incongruities of 
thing's abstract, which moral words stand for, may have 
all the evidence of mathematical truths. But this is not 
peculiar to things which moral words stand for. It is 
common to abstract propositions of every kind. For 
instance : — You cannot take from a man what he has 
not ; A man cannot be bound and perfectly free at the 
■same time. I think no man will call these moral truths, 
but they are necessary truths, and as evident as any in 
mathematics. Indeed, they are very nearly allied to 
the two which Mr. Locke gives as instances of moral 
propositions capable of demonstration. Of such ab- 
stract propositions, however, I think it may more prop- 
erly be said that they have the evidence of mathematical 
axioms, than that they are capable of demonstration. 

There are propositions of another kind, which alone 
deserve the name of moral propositions. They are 
such as affirm something to be the duty of persons that 
really exist. These are not abstract propositions ; and 
therefore Mr. Locke's reasoning does not apply to them. 
The truth of all such propositions depends upon the 
constitution and circumstances of the persons to whom 
they are applied. 

Of such propositions, there are some that are self- 
evident to every man that has a conscience ; and these 
are the principles from which all moral reasoning must 
be drawn. They may be called the axioms of morals. 
But our reasoning from these axioms to any duty that 
is not self-evident, can very rarely be demonstrative. 
Nor is this any detriment to the cause of virtue, be- 
cause to act against what appears most probable in a 
matter of duty is as real a trespass against the first 



436 REASONING. 



principles of morality, as to act against demonstration ; 
and because he who has but one talent in reasoning, 
and makes the proper use of it, shall be accepted, as 
well as he to whom God has given ten. 



CHAP TEE II. 

OF PROBABLE REASONING. 

I. Distinction between Probable and Demonstrative 
Reasoning.] The field of demonstration, as has been 
observed, is necessary truth ; the field of probable rea- 
soning is contingent truth, — not what necessarily must 
be at all times, but what is, or was, or shall be. 

No contingent truth is capable of strict demonstra- 
tion ; but necessary truths may sometimes have proba- 
ble evidence. Dr. Wallis discovered many important 
mathematical truths, by that kind of induction which 
draws a general conclusion from particular premises. 
This is not strict demonstration, but, in some cases, 
gives as full conviction as demonstration itself; and a 
man may be certain that a truth is demonstrable before 
it ever has been demonstrated. In other cases, a mathe- 
matical proposition may have such probable evidence 
from induction or analogy, as encourages the mathe- 
matician to investigate its demonstration. But still 
the reasoning proper to mathematical and other neces- 
sary truths is demonstration ; and that which is proper 
to contingent truths is probable reasoning. 

These two kinds of reasoning differ in other respects. 
In demonstrative reasoning, one argument is as good 
as a thousand. One demonstration may be more ele- 
gant than another; it may be more easily compre- 
hended, or it may be more subservient to some purpose 
beyond the present. On any of these accounts, it may 
deserve a preference : but then it is sufficient by itself ; 
it needs no aid from another ; it can receive none. To 



PROBABLE EVIDENCE. 437 

add more demonstrations of the same conclusion would 
be a kind of tautology in reasoning ; because one dem- 
onstration, clearly comprehended, gives all the evidence 
we are capable of receiving. 

The strength of probable reasoning, for the most part, 
depends, not upon any one argument, but upon many, 
which unite their force, and lead to the same conclu- 
sion. Any one of them by itself would be insufficient 
to convince ; but the whole taken together may have a 
force that is irresistible, so that to desire more evidence 
would be absurd. Would any man seek new argu- 
ments to prove that there were such persons as King 
Charles the First, or Oliver Cromwell ? Such evidence 
may be compared to a rope made up of many slender 
filaments twisted together. The rope has strength 
more than sufficient to bear the stress laid upon it, 
though no one of the filaments of which it is composed 
would be sufficient for that purpose. 

It is a common observation, that it is unreasonable 
to require demonstration for things which do not admit 
of it. It is no less unreasonable to require reasoning 
of any kind for things which are known without rea- 
soning. All reasoning- must be grounded upon truths 
vihich are known without reasoning: In every branch 
of real knowledge there must be first principles whose 
truth is known intuitively, without reasoning, either 
probable or demonstrative. They are not grounded on 
reasoning, but all reasoning is grounded on them. It 
has been shown, that there are first principles of neces- 
sary truths, and first principles of contingent truths. 
Demonstrative reasoning is grounded upon the former, 
and probable reasoning upon the latter. 

That we may not be embarrassed by the ambiguity 
of words, it is proper to observe, that there is a popular 
meaning of probable evidence, which ought not to be 
confounded with the philosophical meaning above ex- 
plained. In common language, probable evidence is 
considered as an inferior degree of evidence, and is op- 
posed to certainty ; so that what is certain is more than 
probable, and what is only probable is not certain. 
37* 



438 REASONING. 

Philosophers consider probable evidence, not as a de- 
gree, but as a species of evidence which is opposed, not 
to certainty, but to another species of evidence called 
demonstration. 

Demonstrative evidence has no degrees ; but prob- 
able evidence, taken in the philosophical sense, has all 
degrees, from the very least to the greatest, which we 
call certainty. That there is such a city as Rome, I 
am as certain as of any proposition in Euclid; but the 
evidence is not demonstrative, but of that kind which 
philosophers call probable. Yet, in common language, 
it would sound oddly to say, It is probable there is such 
a city as Rome, because it would imply some degree of 
doubt or uncertainty. 

Taking probable evidence, therefore, in the philo- 
sophical sense, as it is opposed to demonstrative, it 
may have any degree of evidence, from the least to the 
greatest. 

I think, in most cases, we measure the degrees of 
evidence by the effect they have upon a sound under- 
standing, when comprehended clearly, and without 
prejudice. Every degree of evidence perceived by the 
mind produces a proportioned degree of assent or 
belief. The judgment may be in perfect suspense be- 
tween two contradictory opinions, when there is no 
evidence for either, or equal evidence for both. The 
least preponderancy on one side inclines the judgment 
in proportion. Belief is mixed with doubt, more or 
less, until we come to the highest degree of evidence, 
when all doubt vanishes, and the belief is firm and im- 
movable. This degree of evidence, the highest the 
human faculties can attain, we call certainty. 

II. Different Kinds of Probable Evidence.] Probable 
evidence not only differs in kind from demonstrative, 
but is itself of different kinds. The chief of these I 
shall mention, without pretending to make a complete 
enumeration. 

1. The first kind is that of human testimony, upon 
which the greatest part of human knowledge is built. 



PROBABLE EVIDENCE. 439 

The faith of history depends upon it, as well as the 
judgment of solemn tribunals with regard to men's ac- 
quired rights, and with regard to their guilt or inno- 
cence when they are charged with crimes. A great 
part of the business of the judge, of counsel at the bar, 
of the historian, the critic, and the antiquarian, is to 
canvass and weigh this kind of evidence; and no man 
can act with common prudence, in the ordinary occur- 
rences of life, who has not some competent judgment 
of it. 

The belief we give to testimony, in many cases, is 
not solely grounded upon the veracity of the testifier. 
In a single testimony, we consider the motives a man 
might have to falsify. If there be no appearance of any 
such motive, much more if there be motives on the 
other side, his testimony has weight independent of his 
moral character. If the testimony be circumstantial, 
we consider how far the circumstances agree together, 
and with things that are known. It is so very difficult 
to fabricate a story, which cannot be detected by a ju- 
dicious examination of the circumstances, that it ac- 
quires evidence by being able to bear such a trial. 
There is an art in detecting false evidence in judicial 
proceedings, well known to able judges and barristers ; 
so that I believe few false witnesses leave the bar with- 
out suspicion of their guilt. 

When there is an agreement of many witnesses, in a 
great variety of circumstances, without the possibility 
of a previous concert, the evidence may be equal to that 
of demonstration.* 

2. A second kind of probable evidence is the author- 
ity of those who are good judges of the point in question. 
The supreme court of judicature of the British nation 
is often determined by the opinion of lawyers in a point 
of law, of physicians in a point of medicine, and of 

* See Babbage's Ninth Bridgeiuater Treatise, Note E, On Humis Argu- 
ment against Miracles ; in which it is demonstrated mathematically that " it 
is always possible to assign a number of independent witnesses, the im- 
probability of the falsehood of whose concurring testimony shall be greater 
than the improbability of the alleged miracle." — Ed. 



440 REASONING. 

other artists in what relates to their several professions. 
And, in the common affairs of life, we frequently rely 
upon the judgment of others, in points of which we are 
not proper judges ourselves. 

3. A third kind of probable evidence is that by which 
we recognize the identity of things, and persons of our 
acquaintance. That two swords, two horses, or two 
persons may be so perfectly alike, as not to be distin- 
guishable by those to whom they are best known, can- 
not be shown to be impossible. But we learn either 
from nature, or from experience, that it never happens ; 
or so very rarely, that a person or thing well known to 
us is immediately recognized without any doubt, when 
we perceive the marks or signs by which we have been 
accustomed to distinguish it from all other individuals 
of the kind. 

This evidence we rely upon in the most important 
affairs of life, and by this evidence the identity both of 
things and of persons is determined in courts of judica- 
ture. 

4. A fourth kind of probable evidence is that which 
we have of men's future actions and conduct, from the 
general principles of action in man, or from our knowl- 
edge of the individuals. 

Notwithstanding the folly and vice that are to be 
found among men, there is a certain degree of prudence 
and probity which we rely upon in every man that is 
not insane. If it were not so, no man would be safe in 
the company of another, and there could be no society 
among mankind. If men were as much disposed to 
hurt as to do good, to lie as to speak truth, they could 
not live together : they would keep at as great a dis- 
tance from one another as possible, and the race would 
soon perish. We expect that men will take some care 
of themselves, of their family, friends, and reputation ; 
that they will not injure others without some tempta- 
tion ; that they will have some gratitude for good 
offices, and some resentment of injuries. 

Such maxims with regard to human conduct are the 
foundation of all political reasoning, and of common 



PROBABLE EVIDENCE. 441 

prudence in the conduct of life. Hardly can a man 
form any project in public or in private life, which does 
not depend upon the conduct of other men, as well as 
his own, and which does not go upon the supposition, 
that men will act such a part in such circumstances. 
This evidence may be probable in a very high degree, 
but can never be demonstrative. The best concerted 
project may fail, and wise counsels may be frustrated, 
because some individual acted a part which it would 
have been against all reason to expect. 

5. Another kind of probable evidence, the counter- 
part of the last, is that by which we collect men's charac- 
ters and designs from their actions, speech, and other ex- 
ternal signs. 

We see not men's hearts, nor the principles by which 
they are actuated ; but there are external signs of their 
principles and dispositions, which, though not certain, 
may sometimes be more trusted than their professions ; 
and it is from external signs that we must draw all the 
knowledge w r e can attain of men's characters. 

6. The next kind of probable evidence I mention 
is that which mathematicians call the probability of 
chances. 

We attribute some events to chance, because we 
know only the remote cause which must produce some 
one event of a number ; but know not the more imme- 
diate cause which determines a particular event of that 
number, in preference to the others. I think all the 
chances about which we reason in mathematics are of 
this kind. Thus, in throwing a just die upon a table, 
we say it is an equal chance which of the six sides shall 
be turned up ; because neither the person who throws, 
nor the by-standers, know the precise measure of force 
and direction necessary to turn up any one side rather 
than another. There are here, therefore, six 'events, one. 
of which must happen ; and as all are supposed to have 
equal probability, the probability of any one side being 
turned up — the ace, for instance — is as one to the re- 
maining number, five. The probability of turning up 
two aces with two dice is as one to thirty-five ; because 



442 REASONING. 

here there are thirty-six events, each of which has equal 
probability. 

Upon such principles as these, the doctrine of chances 
has furnished a field of demonstrative reasoning of great 
extent, although the events about which this reasoning 
is employed be not necessary, but contingent, and be 
not certain, but probable. This may seem to contra- 
dict a principle before advanced, that contingent truths 
are not capable of demonstration ; but it does not : for 
in the mathematical reasonings about chance, the con- 
clusion demonstrated is not that such an event shall 
happen, but that the probability of its happening bears 
such a ratio to the probability of its failing- ; and this 
conclusion is necessary upon the suppositions on which 
it is grounded. 

7. The last kind of probable evidence I shall men- 
tion is that by which the known laws of nature have been 
discovered, and the effects ivhich have been produced by 
them informer ages, or ivhich may be expected in time to 
come. 

The laws of nature are the rules by which the Su- 
preme Being governs the world. We deduce them 
only from facts that fall within our own observation, or 
are properly attested by those who have observed them. 

The knowledge of some of the laws of nature is 
necessary to all men in the conduct of life. These are 
soon discovered, even by savages. They know that 
fire burns, that water drowns, that bodies gravitate to- 
wards the earth. They know that day and night, sum- 
mer and winter, regularly succeed each other. As far 
back as their experience and information reach, they 
know that these have happened regularly ; and, upon 
this ground, they are led, by the constitution of human 
nature, to expect that they will happen in time to come, 
in like circumstances. 

The knowledge which the philosopher attains of the 
laws of nature differs from that of the vulgar, not in the 
first principles on which it is grounded, but in its extent 
and accuracy. He collects with care the phenomena 
that lead to the same conclusion, and compares them 



PROBABLE EVIDENCE. 443 

with those that seem to contradict or to limit it. He 
observes the circumstances on which every phenome- 
non depends, and distinguishes them carefully from 
those that are accidentally conjoined with it. He puts 
natural bodies in various situations, and applies them 
to one another in various ways, on purpose to observe 
the effect ; and thus acquires from his senses a more 
extensive knowledge of the course of nature in a short 
time, than could be collected by casual observation in 
many ages. 

But what is the result of his laborious researches ? 
It is, that, as far as he has been able to observe, such 
things have always happened in such circumstances, 
and such bodies have always been found to have such 
properties. These are matters of fact, attested by sense, 
memory, and testimony, just as the few facts which the 
vulgar know are attested to them. 

And what conclusions does the philosopher draw 
from the facts he has collected ? They are, that like 
events have happened in former times in like circum- 
stances, and will happen in time to come ; and these 
conclusions are built on the very same ground on which 
the simple rustic concludes that the sun will rise to- 
morrow. 

Facts reduced to general rules, and the consequences 
of those general rules, are all that we really know of the 
material world. And the evidence that such general 
rules have no exceptions, as well as the evidence that 
they will be the same in time to come as they have 
been in time past, can never be demonstrative. It is 
only that species of evidence which philosophers call 
probable. General rules may have exceptions or lim- 
itations which no man ever had occasion to observe. 
The laws of nature may be changed by Him who es- 
tablished them. But we are led by our constitution to 
rely upon their continuance with as little doubt as if it 
was demonstrable.* 



* As Reid gives an entire Essay to Reasoning, it is remarkable that he 
does not treat of induction by name, to which his last-mentioned form of 



444 



REASONING. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF MR. HUME'S SKEPTICISM WITH REGARD TO REASON. 

I. He reduces all Knowledge, to Probability.] In the 
Treatise of Human Nature, Book I. Part IV. Sect. L, 
the author undertakes to prove two points: — First, 
that all that is called human knowledge (meaning 
demonstrative knowledge) is only probability ;• and 
secondly, that this probability, when duly examined, 
evanishes by degrees, and leaves at last no evidence at 
all : so that, in the issue, there is no ground to believe 



probable reasoning belongs, nor mark the distinction between inductive and 
deductive reasoning. To supply this defect I copy a passage from Jouffroy 
(Introduction to Ethics, Lect. IX.), one of the most faithful of Reid's fol- 
lowers : — 

" This is the process of reasoning by induction : — when several particular 
cases, which are analogous, have been ascertained by observation, and 
stored up in the memory, reason applies to this series of analogous obser- 
vations the a priori principle, that the laws of nature are constant ; and, at 
once, what was true through observation in only twenty, thirty, or forty 
observed cases, becomes, by the application of this principle, a general 
law, as true of other cases not observed as of those which observation has 
ascertained. From the results of observation, and solely by the application 
to these results of a conception of reason, the mind arrives at a conse- 
quence that transcends them. Such is the method of reasoning by induc- 
tion. Its characteristic is, that it proceeds from certain results, communi- 
cated by observation, to a general principle, within which they are in- 
cluded. 

" The process of reasoning by deduction is as follows : — A truth of any 
kind, particular, general, or universal, being made known, reason deduces 
from it whatever other truths it includes. Sometimes the deduction is 
complete, in which case reason only presents the whole truth under two 
different aspects ; at other times the deduction is imperfect, and then rea- 
son passes from the whole to a part. But in either case, if we compare to- 
gether the results of our reasoning and the premises from which we drew 
them, we shall always find that these results, and a part or the whole of the 
premises, are perfectly equivalent. This is the special characteristic of de- 
ductive reasoning." 

The following admirable passage on the verification of inductions is from 
the Quarterly Review, Vol. LXVIII. p 233 : — 

" It is of great moment to distinguish the characters of a sound induction. 
One of them is its ready identification with our conceptions of facts, so as to 
make itself a part of them, to ingraft itself into language, and by no subse- 
quent effort of the mind to be got rid of. The leading term of a true theory 



ABSOLUTE SKEPTICISM. HUME. 445 

any one proposition rather than its contrary, and " all 
those are certainly fools who reason, or believe any 
thing." 

To pretend to prove by reasoning that there is no 
force in reason, does indeed look like a philosophical 
delirium. It is like a man's pretending to see clearly 
that he himself and all other men are blind. 

Still, it may not be improper to inquire, whether, as 
the author thinks, this state of mind -was produced by 
a just application of the rules of logic, or, as others may 
be apt to think, by the misapplication and abuse of them. 

First, Because we axe fallible, the author infers that 
all knowledge degenerates into probability. 

That man, and probably every created being, is falli- 



once pronounced, we cannot fall back, even in thought, to that helpless 
state of doubt and bewilderment in which we gazed on the facts before. 
The general proposition is more than a sum of the particulars. Our dots 
are filled in and connected by an ideal outline, which we pursue even be- 
yond their limits, assign it a name, and speak of it as a thing. In all our 
propositions, this new thing is referred to, the elements of which it is formed 
are forgotten ; and thus we arrive at an inductive formula, — a general, 
perhaps a universal, proposition. 

" Another character of sound inductions is, that they enable us to predict. 
We feel secure that our rule is based upon the realities of nature, when it 
stands us in the stead of more experience ; when it embodies facts, as an 
experience wider than our own would do, and in a way that our ordinary 
experience would never reach ; when it will bear, not stress, but torture, 
and gives true results in cases studiously different from those which led to 
the discovery. The theories of Newton and Fresnel are full of sueh cases. 
In the latter, indeed [the theory of polarization], this test is carried to such 
an extreme, that theory has actually remanded back experiment to read her 
lesson anew, and convicted her of blindness and error. It has informed 
her of facts so strange as to appear to her impossible, and showed her all 
the singularities she would observe in critical cases she never dreamed of 
trying. 

"Another character, which is exemplified only in the greatest theories, 
is the consilience of inductions, where many and widely different lines of ex- 
perience spring together into one theory which explains them all, and that 
in a more simple manner than seemed to be required for cither separately. 
Thus, in the infinitely varied phenomena of physical astronomy, when all 
arc discussed and all explained, we hear from all quarters the consentane- 
ous echoes of but one word, — gravitation.'" 

For recent authorities on the subject of induction, see Baden Powell's 
Connection of Natural and Divine Truth, Sect. I. ; Whewell's Philosophy of 
the Inductive Sf:iences, Books I., XI., and XIII.; Mill's Ijx/i'c, Book III.; 
Whewell, On Induction with Special Reference to Mr. MiWs System of Logic. 
— Ed. 

3S 



446 REASONIXG. 

ble, and that a fallible being cannot have that perfect 
comprehension and assurance of truth which an infalli- 
ble being has, I think ought to be granted. It becomes 
a fallible being to be modest, open to new light, and 
sensible that, by some false bias, or by rash judging, he 
may be misled. If this be called a degree of skepticism, 
I cannot help approving of it, being persuaded that the 
man who makes the best use he can of the faculties 
which God has given him, without thinking them more 
perfect than they really are, may have all the belief that 
is necessary in the conduct of life, and all that is neces- 
sary to his acceptance with his Maker. 

It is granted, then, that human judgments ought al- 
ways to be formed with a humble sense of our fallibility 
in judging. This is all that can be inferred by the rales 
of logic from our being fallible. And if this be all that 
is meant by our knowledge degenerating into probabil- 
ity, I know no person of a different opinion. But it 
may be observed, that the author here uses the word 
probability in a sense for which I know no authority 
but his own. Philosophers understand probability as 
opposed to demonstration ; the vulgar as opposed to cer- 
tainty ; but this author understands it as opposed to 
infallibility, which no man claims. 

One who believes himself to be fallible may still hold 
it to be certain that two and two make four, and that 
two contradictory propositions cannot both be true. He 
may believe some things to be probable only, and other 
things to be demonstrable, without making any pre- 
tence to infallibility. 

If we use words in their proper meaning, it is impos- 
sible that demonstration should degenerate into proba- 
bility from the imperfection of our faculties. Our judg- 
ment cannot change the nature of the things about 
which we judge. What is really demonstration will 
still be so, whatever judgment we form concerning it. 
It may likewise be observed, that, when we mistake 
that for demonstration which really is not, the conse- 
quence of this mistake is, not that demonstration de- 
generates into probability, but that what we took to be 



ABSOLUTE SKEPTICISM. HUME. 447 

demonstration is no proof at all ; for one false step in a 
demonstration destroys the whole, but cannot turn it 
into another kind of proof. 

Upon the whole, then, this first conclusion of our au- 
thor, that the fallibility of human judgment turns all 
knowledge into probability, if understood literally, is 
absurd ; but if it be only a figure of speech, and means 
no more than that, in all our judgments, we ought to 
be sensible of our fallibility, and ought to hold our 
opinions with that modesty that becomes fallible crea- 
tures, which I take to be what the author meant, this, I 
think, nobody denies, nor was it necessary to enter into 
a laborious proof of it. 

II. And all Probability to Nothing-.] The second point 
which he attempts to prove is, that this probability, 
when duly examined, suffers a continual diminution, and 
at last a total extinction. 

The obvious consequence of this is, that no fallible 
being can have good reason to believe any thing at all. 
But let us hear the proof. 

" In every judgment, we ought to correct the first 
judgment derived from the nature of the object, by an- 
other judgment derived from the nature of the under- 
standing. Beside the original uncertainty inherent in 
the subject, there arises another, derived from the weak- 
ness of the faculty which judges. Having adjusted 
these two uncertainties together, we are obliged, by our 
reason, to add a new uncertainty, derived from the pos- 
sibility of error in the estimation we make of the truth 
and fidelity of our faculties. This is a doubt of which, 
if we would closely pursue our reasoning, we cannot 
avoid giving a decision. But this decision, though it 
should be favorable to our preceding judgment, being 
founded only on probability, must weaken still further 
our first evidence. The third uncertainty must in like 
manner be criticized by a fourth, and so on without 
end. 

" Now, as every one of these uncertainties takes away 
a part of the original evidence, it must at last be re- 



448 REASONING. 

duced to nothing. Let our first belief be ever so strong, 
it must infallibly perish by passing through so many 
examinations, each of which carries off somewhat of its 
force and vigor. No finite object can subsist under a 
decrease repeated in infinitum." 

This is the author's Achillean argument against the 
evidence of reason, from which he concludes, that a man 
who would govern his belief by reason must believe 
nothing at all, and that belief is an act, not of the cogi- 
tative, but of the sensitive part of our nature. If there 
be any such thing as motion, said an ancient skeptic, 
the swift-footed Achilles could never overtake an old 
man in a journey. For, suppose the old man to set 
out a thousand paces before Achilles, and that, while 
Achilles has travelled the thousand paces, the old man 
has got five hundred : when Achilles has gone the five 
hundred, the old man has gone two hundred and fifty; 
and when Achilles has gone the two hundred and fifty, 
the old man is still one hundred and twenty-five before 
him. Repeat these estimations in infinitum, and you 
will still find the old man foremost; therefore Achilles 
can -never overtake him; therefore there can be no- 
such thing as motion. 

The reasoning of the modern skeptic against reason 
is equally ingenious, and equally convincing. Indeed, 
they have a great similarity. If we trace the journey 
of Achilles two thousand paces, we shall find the very 
point where the old man is overtaken : but this short 
journey, by dividing it into an infinite number of stages, 
with corresponding estimations, is made to appear infi- 
nite. In like manner, our author, subjecting every judg- 
ment to an infinite number of successive probable esti- 
mations, reduces the evidence to nothing. 

To return, then, to the argument of the modern 
skeptic. I examine the proof of a theorem of Euclid. 
It appears to me to be strict demonstration. But I 
may have overlooked some fallacy ; therefore I examine 
it again and again, but can find no flaw in it. I find 
all that have examined it agree with me. I have now 
that evidence of the truth of the proposition which I 



ABSOLUTE SKEPTICISM. HUME. 449 

and all men call demonstration, and that belief of it 
which we call certainty. 

Here my skeptical friend interposes, and assures me, 
that the rules of logic reduce this demonstration to no 
evidence at all. I am willing to hear what step in it 
he thinks fallacious, and why. He makes no objection 
to any part of the demonstration, but pleads my falli- 
bility in judging. I have made the proper allowance 
for this already, by being open to conviction. " But," 
says he, " there are two uncertainties, the first inherent 
in the subject, which I have already shown to have 
only probable evidence ; the second arising from the 
weakness of the faculty that judges." I answer, it is 
the weakness of the faculty only that reduces this dem- 
onstration to what you call probability. You must 
not, therefore, make it a second uncertainty ; for it is 
the same with the first. To take credit twice in an ac- 
count for the same article is not agreeable to the rules 
of logic. Hitherto, therefore, there is but one uncer- 
tainty, — to wit, my fallibility in judging. 

" But," says my friend, " you are obliged by reason 
to add a neiv uncertainty, derived from the possibility of 
error in the estimation you make of the truth and fidelity 
of your faculties." I answer, — This estimation is am- 
biguously expressed : it may either mean an estimation 
of my liableness to err by the misapplication and abuse 
of my faculties, or it may mean an estimation of my 
liableness to err by conceiving my faculties to be true 
and faithful, while they may be false and fallacious in 
themselves, even when applied in the best manner. I 
shall consider this estimation in each of these senses. 

If the first be the estimation meant, it is true that 
reason directs us, as fallible creatures, to carry along 
with us, in all our judgments, a sense of our fallibility. 
It is true, also, that we are in greater danger of erring 
in some cases, and less in others ; and that this danger 
of erring may, according to the circumstances of the 
case, admit of an estimation, which we ought likewise 
to carry along with us in every judgment we form. 

After repeated examination of a proposition of Eu- 
38* 



450 



REASONING. 



did, I judge it to be strictly demonstrated ; this is my 
first judgment. But as I am liable to err from various 
causes, I consider how far I may have been misled by 
any of these causes in this judgment. My decision 
upon this second point is favorable to my first judgment, 
and therefore, as I apprehend, must strengthen it. To 
say, that this decision, because it is only probable, must 
weaken the first evidence, seems to me contrary to all 
rules of logic, and to common sense. The first judg- 
ment may be compared to the testimony of a credible 
witness ; the second, after a scrutiny into the character 
of the witness, wipes off every objection that can be 
made to it, and therefore surely must confirm, and not 
weaken, his testimony. 

But let us suppose, that, in another case, I examine 
my first judgment upon some point, and find, that it 
was attended with unfavorable circumstances. What, 
in reason, and according to the rules of logic, ought to 
be the effect of this discovery ? 

The effect surely will be, and ought to be, to make 
me less confident in my first judgment, until I examine 
the point anew in more favorable circumstances. If it 
be a matter of importance, T return to weigh the evi- 
dence of my first judgment. If it was precipitate be- 
fore, it must now be deliberate in every point. If at 
first I was in passion, I must now be cool. If I had an 
interest in the decision, I must place the interest on the 
other side. 

It is evident, that this review of the subject may con- 
firm my first judgment, notwithstanding the suspicious 
circumstances that attended it. Though the judge was 
biased or corrupted, it does not follow that the sentence 
was unjust. The rectitude of the decision does not de- 
pend upon the character of the judge, but upon the na- 
ture of the case. From that only it must be determined 
whether the decision be just. The circumstances that 
rendered it suspicious are mere presumptions, which 
have no force against direct evidence. 

Thus, I have considered the effect of this estimation 
of our liableness to err in our first judgment, and have 



ABSOLUTE SKEPTICISM. HUME. 451 

allowed to it all the effect that reason and the rules of 
logic permit. In the case I first supposed, and in every 
case where we can discover no cause of error, it affords 
a presumption in favor of the first judgment. In other 
cases, it may afford a presumption against it. But the 
rules of logic require that we should not judge by pre- 
sumptions where we have direct evidence. The effect 
of an unfavorable presumption should only be, to make 
us examine the evidence with the greater care. 

The skeptic urges, in the last place, that this estima- 
tion must be subjected to another estimation, that to 
another, and so on in infinitum ; and as every new esti- 
mation takes away from the evidence of the first judg- 
ment, it must at last be totally annihilated. 

I answer, first, it has been shown above, that the first 
estimation, supposing it unfavorable, can only afford a 
presumption against the first judgment ; the second, 
upon the same supposition, will be only the presump- 
tion of a presumption ; and the third, the presumption 
that there is a presumption of a presumption. This in- 
finite series of presumptions resembles an infinite series 
of quantities decreasing in geometrical proportion, which 
amounts only to a finite sum. The infinite series of 
stages of Achilles' s journey after the old man amounts 
only to two thousand paces ; nor can this infinite series 
of presumptions outweigh one solid argument in favor 
of the first judgment, supposing them all to be unfavor- 
able to it. 

Secondly, I have shown, that the estimation of our 
first judgment may strengthen it; and the same thing 
may be said of all the subsequent estimations. It would, 
therefore, be as reasonable to conclude, that the first 
judgment will be brought to infallible certainty when 
this series of estimations is wholly in its favor, as that 
its evidence will be brought to nothing by such a series 
supposed to be wholly unfavorable to it. But, in reality, 
one serious and cool reexamination of the evidence by 
which our first judgment is supported has, and, in rea- 
son, ought to have, more force to strengthen or weaken 
it, than an infinite series of such estimations as our au- 
thor requires. 



452 REASONING. 

Thirdly, I know no reason nor rule in logic that re- 
quires that such a series of estimations should follow 
every particular judgment. 

The author's reasoning supposes, that a man, when 
he forms his first judgment, conceives himself to be 
infallible ; that by a second and subsequent judgment, 
he discovers that he is not infallible; and that by a 
third judgment, subsequent to the second, he estimates 
his liableness to err in such a case as the present. 

If the man proceed in this order, I grant that his sec- 
ond judgment will, with good reason, bring down the 
first from supposed infallibility to fallibility; and that 
his third judgment will, in some degree, either strength- 
en or weaken the first, as it is corrected by the second. 
But every man of understanding proceeds in a contrary 
order. When about to judge in any particular point, 
he knows already that he is not infallible. He knows 
what are the cases in which he is most or least liable 
to err. The conviction of these things is always pres- 
ent to his mind, and influences the degree of his assent 
in his first judgment, as far as to him appears reason- 
able. If he should afterwards find reason to suspect 
his first judgment, and desires to have all the satisfac- 
tion his faculties can give, reason will direct him not to 
form such a series of estimations upon estimations as 
this author requires, but to examine the evidence of his 
first judgment carefully and coolly; and this review 
may very reasonably, according to its result, either 
strengthen or weaken, or totally overturn, his first judg- 
ment. 

This infinite series of estimations, therefore, is not the 
method that reason directs in order to form our judg- 
ment in any case. It is introduced without necessity, 
without any use but to puzzle the understanding, and 
to make us think, that to judge, even in the simplest 
and plainest cases, is a matter of insurmountable diffi- 
culty and endless labor; just as the ancient skeptic, to 
make a journey of two thousand paces appear endless, 
divided it into an infinite number of stages. 

But we observed, that the estimation which our au- 



ABSOLUTE SKEPTICISM. HUME. 453 

thor requires may admit of another meaning, which, 
indeed, is more agreeable to the expression, but incon- 
sistent with what he advanced before. 

By the possibility of error in the estimation of the 
truth and fidelity of our faculties, may be meant, that 
we may err by esteeming our faculties true and faith- 
ful, while, in fact, they may be false and fallacious, 
even when used according to the rules of reason and 
logic. 

If this be meant, I answer, first, that the truth and 
fidelity of our faculty of judging are, and must be, 
taken for granted in every judgment and in every esti- 
mation. 

If the skeptic can seriously doubt of the truth and 
fidelity of his faculty of judging when properly used, 
and suspend his judgment upon that point till he finds 
proof, his skepticism admits of no cure by reasoning, 
and he must even continue in it until he have new 
faculties given him, which shall have authority to sit in 
judgment upon the old. Nor is there any need of an 
endless succession of doubts upon this subject, for the 
first puts an end to all judgment and reasoning, and to 
the possibility of conviction by that means. The skep- 
tic has here got possession of a stronghold which is 
impregnable to reasoning, and we must leave him in 
possession of it, till nature, by other means, makes him 
give it up. 

Secondly, I observe, that this ground of skepticism, 
from the supposed infidelity of our faculties, contra- 
dicts what the author before advanced in this very 
argument, to wit, that "the rules of the demonstrative 
sciences are certain and infallible, and that truth is the 
natural effect of reason, and that error arises from the 
irruption of other causes." 

But perhaps he made these concessions unwarily. 
He is therefore at liberty to retract them, and to rest 
his skepticism upon this sole foundation, that no rea- 
soning can prove the truth and fidelity of our faculties. 
Here he stands upon firm ground : for it is evident, that 
every argument offered to prove the truth and fidelity 



454 REASONING. 

of our faculties takes for granted the thing in question, 
and is therefore that kind of sophism which logicians 
call petitio prindpii. 

All we would ask of this kind of skeptic is, that he 
would be uniform and consistent, and that his practice 
in life do not belie his profession of skepticism with 
regard to the fidelity of his faculties : for the want of 
faith, as well as faith itself, is best shown by works. If 
a skeptic avoid the fire as much as those who believe it 
dangerous to go into it, we can hardly avoid thinking 
his skepticism to be feigned, and not real. 

Our author, indeed, was aware, that neither his skep- 
ticism, nor that of any other person, was able to en- 
dure this trial, and therefore enters a caveat against it. 
" Neither I," says he, " nor any other person, was ever 
sincerely and constantly of that opinion. Nature, by 
an absolute and uncontrollable necessity, has deter- 
mined us to judge, as well as to breathe and feel." 

Upon the whole, I see only two conclusions that can 
be fairly drawn from this profound and intricate rea- 
soning against reason. The first is, that we are fallible 
in all our judgments and in all our reasonings. The 
second, that the truth and fidelity of our faculties can 
never be proved by reasoning ; and therefore our trust 
in them cannot be founded on reasoning. If the last 
be what the author calls his hypothesis, I subscribe to 
it, and think it not an hypothesis, but a manifest truth ; 
though I conceive it to be very improperly expressed 
by saying that belief is more properly an act of the 
sensitive than of the cogitative part of our nature.* 

* On the general subject of skepticism, see Fichte's Destination of Man ; 
Jouffroy's Introduction to Ethics, Lectures VIII -X. ; Ancillon, Essai sur 
la Science et sur la Foi Philosophique; Javary, De la Certitude. — Ed. 



ESSAY VIII. 

OF TASTE. 
CHAPTER I. 

OF TASTE IN GENERAL. 

That power of the mind by which we are capable 
of discerning and relishing the beauties of nature, and 
whatever is excellent in the fine arts, is called taste. 

In treating of this as an intellectual power of the 
mind, I intend only to make some observations, first 
on its nature, and then on its objects. 

1. In the external sense of taste, we are led by reason 
and reflection to distinguish between the agreeable sen- 
sation we feel, and the quality in the object which oc- 
casions it. Both have the same name, and on that 
account are apt to be confounded by the vulgar, and 
even by philosophers. The sensation I feel when I 
taste any sapid body is in my mind ; but there is a real 
quality in the body which is the cause of this sensa- 
tion. These two things have the same name in lan- 
guage, not from any similitude in their nature, but be- 
cause the one is the sign of the other, and because 
there is little occasion in common life to distinguish 
them. This was fully explained in treating of the Sec- 
ondary Qualities of Bodies. The reason of taking 
notice of it now is, that the internal power of taste 
bears a great analogy in this respect to the external. 

When a beautiful object is before us, we may distin- 
guish the agreeable emotion it produces in us from the 
quality of the object which causes that emotion. When 



456 TASTE. 

I hear an air in music that pleases me, I say it is fine, 
it is excellent. This excellence is not in me; it is in 
the music. But the pleasure it gives is not in the 
music ; it is in me. Perhaps I cannot say what it is in 
the tune that pleases my ear, as I cannot say what it 
is in a sapid body that pleases my palate ; but there is 
a quality in the sapid body which pleases my palate, 
and I call it a delicious taste ; and there is a quality in 
the tune that pleases my taste, and I call it a fine or an 
excellent air. 

But though some of the qualities that please a good 
taste resemble the secondary qualities of body, and 
therefore may be called occult qualities, as we only feel 
their effect, and have no more knowledge of the cause 
than that it is something which is adapted by nature to 
produce that effect, this is not always the case. Our 
judgment of beauty is, in many cases, more enlight- 
ened. A work of art may appear beautiful to the most 
ignorant, even to a child. It pleases, but he knows 
not why. To one who understands it perfectly, and 
perceives how every part is fitted with exact judgment 
to its end, the beauty is not mysterious ; it is perfectly 
comprehended ; and he knows wherein it consists, as 
well as how it affects him. 

2. We may observe, that, though all the tastes we 
perceive by the palate are either agreeable or disagree- 
able, or indifferent ; yet among those that are agree- 
able there is a great diversity, not in degree only, but 
in kind. And as we have not generical names for all 
the different kinds of taste, we distinguish them by the 
bodies in which they are found. In like manner, all 
the objects of our internal taste are either beautiful, or 
disagreeable, or indifferent; yet of beauty there is a 
great diversity, not only of degree, but of kind: the 
beauty of a demonstration, the beauty of a poem, the 
beauty of a palace, the beauty of a piece of music, the 
beauty of a fine woman, and many more that might 
be named, are different kinds of beauty ; and we have 
no names to distinguish them, but the names of the 
different objects to which they belong. 



ITS NATURE. 457 

As there is such diversity in the kinds of beauty as 
well as in the degrees, we need not think it strange 
that philosophers have gone into different systems in 
analyzing it, and enumerating its simple ingredients. 
They have made many just observations on the sub- 
ject ; but, from the love of simplicity, have reduced it 
to fewer principles than the nature of the thing will 
permit, having had in their eye some particular kinds 
of beauty, while they overlooked others. 

There are moral beauties as well as natural; beauties 
in the objects of sense, and in intellectual objects; in 
the works of men, and in the works of God ; in things 
inanimate, in brute animals, and in rational beings ; in 
the constitution of the body of man, and in the consti- 
tution of his mind. There is no real excellence which 
has not its beauty to a discerning eye, when placed in 
a proper point of view ; and it is as difficult to enumer- 
ate the ingredients of beauty as the ingredients of real 
excellence. 

3. Those who conceive that there is no standard in 
nature by which taste may be regulated, and that the 
common proverb, that there ought to be no dispute about 
taste, is to be taken in the utmost latitude, go upon 
slender and insufficient ground. The same arguments 
might be used with equal force against any standard 
of truth. Whole nations by the force of prejudice are 
brought to believe the grossest absurdities ; and why 
should it be thought that the taste is less capable of 
being perverted than the judgment ? It must indeed 
be acknowledged, that men differ more in the faculty 
of taste than in what we commonly call judgment ; 
and therefore it may be expected that they should be 
more liable to have their taste corrupted in matters of 
beauty and deformity, than their judgment in matters 
of truth and error. 

If we make due allowance for this, we shall see that 
it is as easy to account for the variety of taste,' though 
there be in nature a standard of true beauty, and con- 
sequently of good taste, as it is to account for the va- 
riety and contrariety of opinions, though there be in 
39 



458 



TASTE. 



nature a standard of truth, and consequently of right 
judgment. 

4. Nay, if we speak accurately and strictly, we shall 
find that, in every operation of taste, there is judgment 
iimplied. 

When a man pronounces a poem or a palace to be 
beautiful, he affirms something of that poem or that 
palace; and every affirmation or denial expresses judg- 
ment. For we cannot better define judgment, than by 
saying that it is an affirmation or denial of one thing 
concerning another. I had occasion to show, when 
treating of judgment, that it is implied in every per- 
ception of our external senses. There is an immediate 
conviction and belief of the existence of the quality 
perceived, whether it be color, or sound, or figure ; and 
the same thing holds in the perception of beauty or 
deformity. 

If it be said, that the perception of beauty is merely 
a feeling in the mind that perceives, without any belief 
of excellence in the object, the necessary consequence 
of this opinion is, that when I say Virgil's Georgics is 
a beautiful poem, I mean not to say any thing of the 
poem, but only something concerning myself and my 
feelings. Why should I use a language that expresses 
the contrary of what I mean? My language, accord- 
ing to the necessary rules of construction, can bear no 
other meaning but this, that there is something in the 
poem, and not in me, which I call beauty. Even those 
who hold beauty to be merely a feeling in the person 
that perceives it, find themselves under a necessity of 
expressing themselves as if beauty were solely a qual- 
ity of the object, and not of the percipient. 

Our judgment of beauty is not, indeed, a dry and 
unafYecting judgment, like that of a mathematical or 
metaphysical truth. By the constitution of our nature, 
it is accompanied with an agreeable feeling or emotion, 
for which we have no other name but the sense of 
beauty. This sense of beauty, like the perceptions of 
our other senses, implies not only a feeling, but an 
opinion of some quality in the object which occasions 
that feeling. 



ITS OBJECTS. 



459 



In objects that please the taste, we always judge that 
there is some real excellence, some superiority to those 
that do not please. In some cases, that superior excel- 
lence is distinctly perceived, and can be pointed out; 
in other cases, we have only a general notion of some 
excellence which we cannot describe. Beauties of the 
former kind may be compared to the primary qualities 
perceived by the external senses ; those of the latter 
kind, to the secondary. 

5. Beauty or deformity in an object results from its 
nature or structure. To perceive the beauty, therefore, 
we must perceive the nature or structure from which it 
results. In this the internal sense differs from the ex- 
ternal. Our external senses may discover qualities 
which do not depend upon any antecedent perception. 
Thus I can hear the sound of a bell, though I never 
perceived any thing else belonging to it. But it is im- 
possible to perceive the beauty of an object without 
perceiving the object, or at least conceiving it. On this 
account, Dr. Hutcheson called the senses of beauty and 
harmony reflex or secondary senses ; because the beauty 
cannot be perceived unless the object be perceived by 
some other power of the mind. Thus the sense of 
harmony and melody in sounds supposes the external 
sense of hearing, and is a kind of secondary to it. A 
man born deaf may be a good judge of beauties of 
another kind, but can have no notion of melody or har- 
mony. The like may be said of beauties in coloring 
and in figure, which can never be perceived without the 
senses by which color and figure are perceived. 



CHAPTER II. 

OF THE OBJECTS OF TASTE. 

A philosophical analysis of the objects of taste is 
like applying the anatomical knife to a fine face. The 



460 TASTE. 

design of the philosopher, as well as of the anatomist, 
is, not to gratify taste, but to improve .knowledge. The 
reader ought to be aware of this, that he may not 
entertain an expectation in which he will be disap- 
pointed. 

By the objects of taste, I mean those qualities or at- 
tributes of things, which are by nature adapted to please 
d good taste. Mr. Addison, and Dr. Akenside after 
him, have reduced them to three, to wit, novella, grand- 
eur, and beauty. This division is sufficient for all I 
intend to say upon the subject, and therefore I shall 
adopt it; — observing only, that beauty is often taken 
in so extensive a sense as to comprehend all the objects 
of taste ; yet all the authors I have met with, who have 
given a division of the objects of taste, make beauty 
one species. I take the reason of this to be, that we 
have specific names for some of the qualities that 
please the taste, but not for all ; and therefore all those 
fall under the general name of beauty for which there 
is no specific name in the division. 

I. First Object of Taste. — Novelty.] Novelty is not 
properly a quality of the thing to which we attribute 
it, far less is it a sensation in the mind to which it is 
new : it is a relation which the thing has to the knowl- 
edge of the person. What is new to one man may not 
be so to another ; w T hat is new this moment maybe 
familiar to the same person some time hence. When 
an object is first brought to our knowledge, it is new, 
whether it be agreeable or not. It is evident, therefore, 
with regard to novelty (whatever may be said of other 
objects of taste), that it is not merely a sensation in 
the mind of him to whom the thing is new ; it is a real 
relation which the thing has to his knowledge at that 
time. 

But we are so constituted, that what is new to us 
commonly gives pleasure upon that account, if it be 
not in itself disagreeable. It rouses our attention, and 
occasions an agreeable exertion of our faculties. 

We can perhaps conceive a being so made, that his 



ITS OBJECTS. NOVELTY. 461 

happiness consists in a continuance of the same un- 
varied sensations or feelings, without any active exer- 
tion on his part. Whether this be possible or not, it is 
evident that man is not such a being. His good con- 
sists in the vigorous exertion of his active and intel- 
lective powers upon their proper objects ; he is made 
for action and progress, and cannot be happy without 
it ; his enjoyments seem to be given by nature, not so 
much for their own sake, as to encourage the exercise 
of his various powers. That tranquillity of soul in 
which some place human happiness is not a dead rest, 
but a regular progressive motion. 

Such is the constitution of man by the appointment 
of nature. This constitution is perhaps a part of the 
imperfection of our nature ; but it is wisely adapted to 
our state, which is not intended to be stationary, but 
progressive. The eye is not satiated with seeing, nor 
the ear with hearing ; something is always wanted. 
Desire and hope never cease, but remain to spur us on 
to something yet to be acquired ; and, if they could 
cease, human happiness must end with them. That 
our desire and hope be properly directed, is our part ; 
that they can never be extinguished, is the work of 
nature. 

But the pleasure derived from new objects, in many 
cases, is not owing solely or chiefly to their being new, 
but to some other circumstance that gives them value. 
The new fashion in dress, furniture, equipage, and 
other accommodations of life, gives pleasure, not so 
much, as I apprehend, because it is new, as because it 
is a sign of rank, and distinguishes a man from the 
vulgar. 

In some things novelty is due, and the want of it a 
real imperfection. Thus, if an author adds to the 
number of books with which the public is already 
overloaded, we expect from him something new ; and 
if he says nothing but what has been said before, in as 
agreeable a manner, we are justly disgusted. 

When novelty is altogether separated from the con- 
ception of worth and utility, it makes but a slight im- 
39* 



462 TASTE. 

pression upon a truly correct taste. Every discovery 
in nature, in the arts, and in the sciences, has a real 
value, and gives a rational pleasure to a good taste. 
But things that have nothing to recommend them but 
novelty are fit only to entertain children, or those who 
are distressed from a vacuity of thought. This qual- 
ity of objects may therefore be compared to the cipher 
in arithmetic, which adds greatly to the value of sig- 
nificant figures, but, when put by itself, signifies noth- 
ing at all. 

II. Second Object of Taste. — Gi'andeur.] "We are 
next to consider what grandeur in objects is. To me 
it seems to be nothing else than such a degree of excel- 
lence, in one kind or another, as merits our admiration. 

There are some attributes of mind which have a real 
and intrinsic excellence, compared with their contraries, 
and which, in every degree, are the natural objects of 
esteem, but in an uncommon degree are objects of ad- 
miration. We put a value upon them because they 
are intrinsically valuable and excellent. 

The spirit of modern philosophy would indeed lead 
us to think, that the worth and value we put upon 
things is only a sensation in our minds, and not any 
thing inherent in the object ; and that we might have 
been so constituted as to put the highest value upon 
the things which we now despise, and to despise the 
qualities which we now highly esteem. But if we 
hearken to the dictates of common sense, we must be 
convinced that there is real excellence in some things, 
whatever our feelings or our constitution be. It de- 
pends, no doubt, upon our constitution, whether we do 
or do not perceive excellence where it really is ; but 
the object has its excellence from its own constitution, 
and not from ours. 

The common judgment of mankind in this matter 
sufficiently appears in the language of all nations, which 
uniformly ascribes excellence, grandeur, and beauty to 
the object, and not to the mind that perceives it. And 
I believe in this, as in most other things, we shall find 



ITS OBJECTS. GRANDEUR. 



463 



the common judgment of mankind and true philoso- 
phy not. to be at variance. 

Is not power in its nature more excellent than weak- 
ness, knowledge than ignorance, wisdom than folly, 
fortitude than pusillanimity? Is there no intrinsic ex- 
cellence in self-command, in generosity, in public spirit? 
Is not friendship a better affection of mind than hatred, 

— a noble emulation, than envy? Let us suppose, if 
possible, a being so constituted as to have a high re- 
spect for ignorance, weakness, and folly ; to venerate 
cowardice, malice, and envy, and to hold the contrary 
qualities in contempt; to have an esteem for lying and 
falsehood, and to love most those who impose upon 
him, and use him worst. Could we believe such a 
constitution to be any thing else than madness and 
delirium ? It is impossible. We can as easily con- 
ceive a constitution by which one should perceive two 
and three to make fifteen, or a part to be greater than 
the whole. 

Every one who attends to the operations of his own- 
mind will find it to be certainly true, as it is the com- 
mon belief of mankind, that esteem is led by opinion, 
and that every person draws our esteem as far only as 
he appears, either to reason or fancy, to be amiable and 
worthy. 

There is, therefore, a real intrinsic excellence in some 
qualities of mind, — as in power, knowledge, wisdom, 
virtue, magnanimity. These in every degree merit 
esteem; but in an uncommon degree they merit admi- 
ration; and that which merits admiration we call grand. 

In the contemplation of uncommon excellence the 
mind feels a noble enthusiasm, which disposes it to the 
imitation of what it admires. When we contemplate 
the character of Cato, his greatness of soul, his supe- 
riority to pleasure, to toil, and to danger, his ardent 
zeal for the liberty of his country, — when we see him 
standing unmoved in misfortunes, the last pillar of the 
liberty of Rome, and falling nobly in his country's ruin, 

— who would not wish to be Cato, rather than Csesar 
in all his triumph ? Such a spectacle of a great soul 



464 TASTE. 

struggling with misfortune, Seneca thought not un- 
worthy of the attention of Jupiter himself. Ecce spec- 
taculum Deo dignum, ad quod respiciat Jupiter suo operi 
intentus, vir fortis cum mala fortuna compositus. 

As the Deity is, of all objects of thought, the most 
grand, the descriptions given in Holy Writ of his attri- 
butes and works, even when clothed in simple expres- 
sion, are acknowledged to be sublime. The expression 
of Moses, " And God said, Let there be light ; and 
there was light," * has not escaped the notice of Lon- 
ginus, a heathen critic, as an example of the sublime. 

Hitherto we have found grandeur only in qualities of 
mind; but it may be asked, Is there no real grandeur 
in material objects ? 

It will perhaps appear extravagant to deny that there 
is ; yet it deserves to be considered, whether all the 
grandeur we ascribe to objects of sense be not derived 
from something intellectual, of which they are the 
effects or signs, or to which they bear some relation or 
analogy. Besides the relations of effect and cause, of 
sign and thing signified, there are innumerable simili- 
tudes and analogies between things of very different 
nature, which lead us to connect them in our imagina- 
tion, and to ascribe to the one what properly belongs 
to the other. Every metaphor in language is an in- 
stance of this ; and it must be remembered, that a very 
great part of language which we now account proper 
was originally metaphorical ; for the metaphorical 
meaning becomes the proper as soon as it becomes the 
most usual; much more, when that which was at first 
the proper meaning falls into disuse. 

Thus the names of grand and sublime, as well as 
their opposites, mean and loiv, are evidently borrowed 
from the dimensions of body ; yet it must be acknowl- 
edged, that many things are truly grand and sublime, 
to which we cannot ascribe the dimensions of height 
and extension. Some analogy there is, without doubt, 
between greatness of dimension, which is an object of 

* Better translated, "Be there light; and light there was." — H. 



ITS OBJECTS. GRANDEUR. 465 

external sense, and that grandeur which is an object of 
taste. On account of this analogy, the last borrows its 
name from the first ; and the name being common 
leads us to conceive that there is something common in 
the nature of the things. But we shall find many qual- 
ities of mind denoted by names taken from some qual- 
ity of body to which they have some analogy, without 
any thing common in their nature. 

Sweetness and austerity, simplicity and duplicity, 
rectitude and crookedness, are names common to cer- 
tain qualities of mind, and to qualities of body to which 
they have some analogy ; yet he would err greatly who 
ascribed to a body that sweetness or that simplicity 
which are the qualities of mind. In like manner, great- 
ness and meanness are names common to qualities 
perceived by the external sense, and to qualities per- 
ceived by taste ; yet he may be in an error, who ascribes 
to the objects of sense that greatness or that meanness 
which is only an object of taste. 

As intellectual objects are made more level to our 
apprehension by giving them a visible form, so the ob- 
jects of sense are dignified and made more august by 
ascribing to them intellectual qualities which have 
some analogy to those they really possess. The sea 
rages, the sky lowers, the meadows smile, the rivulets 
murmur, the breezes whisper, the soil is grateful or un- 
grateful, — such expressions are so familiar in common 
language, that they are scarcely accounted poetical or 
figurative ; but they give a kind of dignity to inanimate 
objects, and make our conception of them more agree- 
able. 

When we consider matter as an inert, extended, di- 
visible, and movable substance, there seems to be noth- 
ing in these qualities which we can call grand ; and 
when we ascribe grandeur to any portion of matter, 
however modified, may it not borrow this quality from 
something intellectual, of which it is the effect, or sign, 
or instrument, or to which it bears some analogy ? or it 
may be because it produces in the mind an emotion 
that has some resemblance to that admiration which 
truly grand objects raise. 



466 TASTE. 

A very elegant writer on the sublime and beautiful 
[Burke] makes every thing grand or sublime that is 
terrible. Might he not be led to this by the similarity 
between dread and admiration ? Both are grave and 
solemn passions ; both make a strong impression upon 
the mind ; and both are very infectious. But they 
differ specifically, in this respect, that admiration sup- 
poses some uncommon excellence in its object, which 
dread does not. We may admire what we see no rea- 
son to dread ; and we may dread what we do not ad- 
mire. In dread there is nothing of that enthusiasm 
which naturally accompanies admiration, and is a chief 
ingredient of the emotion raised by what is truly grand 
or sublime. 

Upon the whole, I humbly apprehend that true grand- 
eur is such a degree of excellence as is fit to raise an 
enthusiastical admiration ; that this grandeur is found 
originally and properly in qualities of mind ; that it is 
discerned in objects of sense only by reflection, as the 
light we perceive in the moon and planets is truly the 
light of the sun ; and that those who look for grandeur 
in mere matter seek the living among the dead. 

If this be a mistake, it ought at least to be granted 
that the grandeur which w"e perceive in qualities of 
mind ought to have a different name from that which 
belongs properly to the objects of sense, as they are very 
different in then nature, and produce very different emo- 
tions in the mind of the spectator. 

III. Third Object of Taste. — Beauty.} All the ob- 
jects we call beautiful agree in two things, which seem 
to concur in our sense of beauty. First, when they are 
perceived, or even imagined, they produce a certain 
agreeable emotion or feeling in the mind ; and secondly, 
this agreeable emotion is accompanied with an opinion 
or belief of their having some perfection or excellence 
belonging to them. 

1. Whether the pleasure we feel in contemplating' 
beautiful objects may have any necessary connection 
with the belief of their excellence, or whether that pleas- 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 



467 



ure be conjoined with this belief by the good pleasure 
only of our Maker, J will not determine. The reader 
may see Dr. Price's sentiments upon this subject, which 
merit consideration, in the second chapter of his Review 
of the Questions concerning Morals. At any rate, the 
pleasure exists. " There is nothing," says Mr. Addison, 
" that makes its way more directly to the soul than 
beauty, which immediately diffuses a secret satisfaction 
and complacence through the imagination, and gives a 
finishing to any thing that is great and uncommon. 
The very first discovery of it strikes the mind with an 
inward joy, and spreads a cheerfulness and delight 
through all its faculties." 

As we ascribe beauty, not only to persons, but to in- 
animate things, we give the name of love or liking to 
the emotion which beauty, in both these kinds of ob- 
jects, produces. It is evident, however, that liking to a 
person is a very different affection of mind from liking 
to an inanimate thing. The first always implies benev- 
olence ; but what is inanimate cannot be the object of 
benevolence. Still, the two affections, however differ- 
ent, have a resemblance in some respects ; and, on ac- 
count of that resemblance, have the same name : and 
perhaps beauty, in these two different kinds of objects, 
though it has one name, may be as different in its na- 
ture as the emotions which it produces in us. 

2. Besides the agreeable emotion which beautiful ob- 
jects produce in the mind of the spectator, they produce 
also an opinion or judgment of some perfection or excel- 
lence in the object. 

The feeling is, no doubt, in the mind, and so also is 
the judgment we form of the object : but this judgment, 
like all others, must be true or false. If it be a true 
judgment, there is some real excellence in the object. 
And the use of all languages shows, that the name of 
beaut// belongs to this excellence of the object, and not 
to the feelings of the spectator. 

We have reason to believe, not only that the beau- 
ties we see in nature are real, and not fanciful, but that 
there are thousands which our faculties are too dull to 



468 TASTE. 

perceive. The man who is skilled in painting or statuary 
sees more of the beauty of a fine picture or statue than 
a common spectator. The same thing holds in all the 
fine arts. The most perfect works of art have a beauty 
that strikes even the rude and ignorant ; but they see 
only a small part of that beauty which is seen in such 
works by those who understand them perfectly, and can 
produce them. This may be applied with no less jus- 
tice to the works of nature. They have a beauty that 
strikes even the ignorant and inattentive. But the 
more we discover of their structure, of their mutual re- 
lations, and of the laws by which they are governed, 
the greater beauty, and the more delightful marks of 
art, wisdom, and goodness, we discern^ Superior be- 
ings may see more than we ; but He only who made 
them, and upon a review pronounced them all to be 
" very good," can see all their beauty. 

Our determinations with regard to the beauty of ob- 
jects may, I think, be distinguished into two kinds ; the 
first we may call instinctive, the other rational. 

(1.) Some objects strike us at once, and appear beau- 
tiful at first sight, without any reflection, without our 
being able to say why we call them beautiful, or being 
able to specify any perfection which justifies our judg- 
ment. Something of this kind there seems to be in 
brute animals, and in children before the use of reason ; 
nor does it end with infancy, but continues through 
life. In the plumage of birds, and of butterflies, in the 
colors and form of flowers, of shells, and of many other 
objects, we perceive a beauty that delights ; but cannot 
say what it is in the object that should produce that 
emotion. 

The beauty of the object may, in such cases, be 
called an occult quality. We know well how it affects 
our senses ; but what it is in itself we know not. But 
this, as well as other occult qualities, is a proper subject 
of philosophical disquisition ; and, by a careful exam- 
ination of the objects to which nature has given this 
amiable quality, we may perhaps discover some real 
excellence in the object, or at least some valuable pur- 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 469 

pose that is served by the effect which it produces 
upon us. 

This instinctive sense of beauty, in different species 
of animals, may differ as much as the external sense of 
taste, and in each species be adapted to its manner of 
life. By this, perhaps, the various tribes are led to as- 
sociate with then kind, to dwell among certain objects 
rather than others, and to construct then habitation in 
a particular manner. There seem likewise to be varie- 
ties in the sense of beauty in the individuals of the 
same species, by which they are directed in the choice 
of a mate, and in the love and care of their offspring. 
" We see," says Mr. Addison, " that every different spe- 
cies of sensible creatures has its different notions of 
beauty, and that each of them is most affected with the 
beauties of its own kind. This is nowhere more re- 
markable than in birds of the same shape and propor- 
tion, where we often see the mate determined in his 
courtship by the single grain or tincture of a feather, 
and never discovering any charms but in the color of its 
own species." 

" Scit thalamo servare fidem, sanctasque veretur 
Connubii leges ; non ilium in pectore candor 
Sollicitat niveus ; neque pravum aceendit amorem 
Splendida lanugo, vel honesta in vertice crista ; 
Purpureusve nitor pennarum ; ast agmina late 
Fceminea explorat cautus, maculasque requirit 
Cognatas, paribusque interlita corpora guttis : 
Ni faceret, pictis sylvam circum undique monstris 
Confusam aspiceres vulgo, partusque biformes, 
Et genus ambiguum, et veneris monumenta nefandae. 

Hinc merula in nigro se oblectat nigra marito ; 
Ettnc socium lasciva petit philomcla canorum, 
Agnoscitque pares sonitus ; hinc noctua tetram 
Canitiem alarum, et glaucos miratur ocellos. 
Nempe sibi semper constat, crescitque quotannis 
Lucida progenies, castos confessa parentes : 
Vere novo exultat, plumasque decora juventus 
Explicat ad solem, patriisque coloribus ardet." 

As far as our determinations of the comparative 
beauty of objects are instinctive, they are no subject of 
reasoning or of criticism; they are purely the gilt of 
nature, and we have no standard by which they may 
be measured. 

40 



470 TASTE. 

(2.) But there are judgments of beauty that may be 
called rational, being grounded on some agreeable qual- 
ity of the object which is distinctly conceived, and may 
be specified. 

This distinction between a rational judgment of 
beauty and that which is instinctive, may be illustrated 
by an instance. In a heap of pebbles, one that is re- 
markable for brilliancy of color and regularity of figure 
will be picked out of the heap by a child. He perceives 
a beauty in it, puts a value upon it, and is fond of the 
property of it. For this preference no reason can be 
given, but that children are, by their constitution, fond 
of brilliant colors, and of regular figures. Suppose, 
again, that an expert mechanic views a well-constructed 
machine. He sees all its parts to be made of the fittest 
materials, and of the most proper form ; nothing super- 
fluous, nothing deficient ; every part adapted to its use, 
and the whole fitted in the most perfect manner to the 
end for which it is intended. He pronounces it to be a 
beautiful machine. He views it with the same agree- 
able emotion as the child viewed the pebble ; but he 
can give a reason for his judgment, and point out 
the particular perfections of the object on which it is 
grounded. 

Although the instinctive and the rational sense of 
beauty may be perfectly distinguished in speculation, 
yet, in passing judgment upon particular objects, they 
are often so mixed and confounded, that it is difficult 
to assign to each its own province. Nay, it may often 
happen, that a judgment of the beauty of an object, 
which was at first merely instinctive, shall afterwards 
become rational, when we discover some latent perfec- 
tion of which that beauty in the object is a sign. 

As the sense of beauty may be distinguished into in- 
stinctive and rational ; so, I think, beauty itself may be 
distinguished into original and derived. 

The attributes of body we ascribe to mind, and the 
attributes of mind to material objects. To inanimate 
things we ascribe life, and even intellectual and moral 
qualities. And although the qualities that are thus 



ITS OBJECTS. — BEAUTY. 471 

made common belong to one of the subjects in the 
proper sense, and to the other metaphorically, these 
different senses are often so mixed in our imagination, 
as to produce the same sentiment with regard to both. 
It is therefore natural, and agreeable to the strain of 
human sentiments and of human language, that in 
many cases the beauty which originally and properly is 
in the thing signified, should be transferred to the sign ; 
that which is in the cause, to the effect ; that which is 
in the end, to the means ; and that which is in the 
agent, to the instrument. 

If what was just said of the distinction between the 
grandeur which we ascribe to qualities of mind, and 
that which we ascribe to material objects, be well 
founded, this distinction of the beauty of objects will 
easily be admitted as perfectly analogous to it. I shall, 
therefore, only illustrate it by an example. 

There is nothing in the exterior of a man more lovely 
and more attractive than perfect good breeding. But 
what is this good breeding ? It consists of all the ex- 
ternal signs of due respect to our superiors, condescen- 
sion to our inferiors, politeness to all with whom we 
converse or have to do, joined in the fair sex with that 
delicacy of outward behaviour which becomes them. 
And how comes it to have such charms in the eyes of 
all mankind ? For this reason only, as I apprehend, 
that it is a natural sign of that temper, and those affec- 
tions and sentiments with regard to others, and with re- 
gard to ourselves, which are in themselves truly amiable 
and beautiful. This is the original, of which good 
breeding is the picture ; and it is the beauty of the 
original that is reflected to our sense by the picture. 
The beauty of good breeding, therefore, is not originally 
in the external behaviour in which it consists, but is 
derived from the qualities of mind which it expresses. 
And though there may be good breeding without the 
amiable qualities of mind, its beauty is still derived 
from what it naturally expresses. 

Having explained these distinctions of our sense of 
beauty into instinctive and rational, and of beauty itself 



472 TASTE. 

into original and derived, I would now proceed to give 
a general view of those qualities in objects to which 
we may justly and rationally ascribe beauty, whether 
original or derived. 

But here some embarrassment arises from the vague 
meaning of the word beauty, which I had occasion be- 
fore to observe. Sometimes it is extended, so as to 
include every thing that pleases a good taste, and so 
comprehends grandeur and novelty, as well as what in 
a more restricted sense is called beauty. At other 
times, it is even by good writers confined to the objects 
of sight, when they are either seen, or remembered, or 
imagined. Yet it is admitted by all men, that there 
are beauties in music ; that there is beauty as well as 
sublimity in composition, both in verse and in prose ; 
that there is beauty in characters, in affections, and in 
actions. These are not objects of sight ; and a man 
may be a good judge of beauty of various kinds, who 
has not the faculty of sight. 

To give a determinate meaning to a word so va- 
riously extended and restricted, I know no better way 
than what is suggested by the common division of the 
objects of taste into novelty, grandeur, and beauty. 
Novelty, it is plain, is no quality of the new object, but 
merely a relation which it has to the knowledge of the 
person to whom it is new. Therefore, if this general 
division be just, every quality in an object that pleases 
a good taste must, in one degree or another, have 
either grandeur or beauty. It may still be difficult to 
fix the precise limit betwixt grandeur and beauty ; but 
they must together comprehend every thing fitted by 
its nature to please a good taste, — that is, every real 
perfection and excellence in the objects we contem- 
plate. 

In a poem, in a picture, in a piece of music, it is real 
excellence that pleases a good taste. In a person, every 
perfection of the mind, moral or intellectual, and every 
perfection of the body, gives pleasure to the spectator 
as well as to the owner, when there is no envy or ma- 
lignity to destroy that pleasure. It is therefore in the 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 473 

scale of perfection and real excellence that we must 
look for what is either grand or beautiful in objects. 
What is the proper object of admiration is grand, and 
what is the proper object of love and esteem is beautiful. 

This, I think, is the only notion of beauty that corre- 
sponds with the division of the objects of taste which 
has been generally received by philosophers. And this 
connection of beauty with real perfection was a capital 
doctrine of the Socratic school. It is often ascribed 
to Socrates in the dialogues of Plato and of Xeno- 
phon. 

I apprehend, therefore, that it is in the mora] and in- 
tellectual perfections of mind, and in its active powers, 
that beauty originally dwells ; and that from this, as 
the fountain, all the beauty which we perceive in the 
visible world is derived. 

This, I think, was the opinion of the ancient philoso- 
phers before named ; and it has been adopted by Lord 
Shaftesbury and Dr. Akenside among the moderns. 

" Mind, mind alone ! bear witness earth and heaven, 
The living fountains in itself contains 
Of beauteous and sublime. Here hand in hand 
Sit paramount the graces. Here enthroned, 
Celestial Venus, with divinest airs, 
Invites the soul to never-fading joy." 

But neither mind, nor any of its qualities or powers, is 
an immediate object of perception to man. We are, 
indeed, immediately conscious of the operations of our 
own mind; and every degree of perfection in them 
gives the purest pleasure, with a proportional degree 
of self-esteem, so flattering to self-love, that the great 
difficulty is to keep it within just bounds, so that we 
may not think of ourselves above what we ought to 
think. 

Other minds we perceive only through the medium 
of material objects, on which their signatures are im- 
pressed. It is through this medium that we perceive 
life, activity, wisdom, and every moral and intellectual 
quality in other beings. The signs of those qualities 
are immediately perceived by the senses ; by them the 
40* 



474 TASTE. 

qualities themselves are reflected to our understanding ; 
and we are very apt to attribute to the sign the beauty 
or the grandeur which is properly and originally in the 
things signified. 

Thus the beauties of mind, though invisible in them- 
selves, are perceived in the objects of sense, on which 
their image is impressed. 

If we consider, on the other hand, the qualities in 
sensible objects to which we ascribe beauty, I appre- 
hend we shall find in all of them some relation to mind, 
and the greatest in those that are most beautiful. 

The qualities of inanimate matter, in which we per- 
ceive beauty, are sound, color, form, and motion; the 
first an object of hearing, the other three of sight; 
which we may consider in order. 

1. In a single note, sounded by a very fine voice, 
there is a beauty which we do not perceive in the same 
note, sounded by a bad voice, or an imperfect instru- 
ment. I need not attempt to enumerate the perfections 
in a single note which give beauty to it. Some of 
them have names in the science of music, and there 
perhaps are others which have no names. But I think 
it will be allowed, that every quality which gives beauty 
to a single note is a sign of some perfection, either in 
the organ, whether it be the human voice or an instru- 
ment, or in the execution. The beauty of the sound 
is both the sign and the effect of this perfection ; and 
the perfection of the cause is the only reason we can 
assign for the beauty of the effect. 

In a composition of sounds, or a piece of music, the 
beauty is either in the harmony, the melody, or the ex- 
pression. The beauty of expression must be derived 
either from the beauty of the thing expressed, or from 
the art and skill employed in expressing it properly. 

In harmony, the very names of concord and discord 
are metaphorical, and suppose some analogy between 
the relations of sound, to which they are figuratively 
applied, and the relations of minds and affections which 
they originally and properly signify. As far as I can 
judge by my ear, when two or more persons of a good 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 475 

voice and ear converse together in amity and friend- 
ship, the tones of their different voices are concordant, 
but become discordant when they give vent to angry 
passions ; so that, without hearing what is said, one 
may know by the tones of the different voices whether 
they quarrel or converse amicably. This, indeed, is 
not so easily perceived in those who have been taught, 
by good breeding, to suppress angry tones of voice, 
even when they are angry, as in the lowest ranks, who 
express their angry passions without any restraint. 

When discord arises occasionally in conversation, but 
soon terminates in perfect amity, we receive more 
pleasure than from perfect unanimity. In like manner, 
in the harmony of music, discordant sounds are occa- 
sionally introduced, but it is always in order to give a 
relish to the most perfect concord that follows. 

Whether these analogies between the harmony of a 
piece of music and harmony in the intercourse of minds 
be merely fanciful, or have any real foundation in fact, 
I submit to those who have a nicer ear, and have ap- 
plied it to observations of this kind. If they have 
any just foundation, as they seem to me to have, they 
serve to account for the metaphorical application of 
the names of concord and discord to the relations of 
sounds ; to account for the pleasure we have from har- 
mony in music ; and to show that the beauty of har- 
mony is derived from the relation it has to agreeable 
affections of mind. 

With regard to melody, I leave it to the adepts in 
the science of music to determine whether music, com- 
posed according to the established rules of harmony 
and melody, can be altogether void of expression ; and 
whether music that has no expression can have any 
beauty. To me it seems, that every strain in melody 
that is agreeable is an imitation of the tones of the 
human voice in the expression of some sentiment or 
passion, or an imitation of some other object in nature ; 
and that music, as well as poetry, is an imitative art. 

2. The sense of beauty in the colors and in the mo- 
tions of inanimate objects is, I believe, in some cases, 



476 . TASTE. 

instinctive. We see that children and savages are 
pleased with brilliant colors and sprightly motions. In 
persons of an improved and rational taste, there are 
many sources from which colors and motions may de- 
rive their beauty. They, as well as the forms of ob- 
jects, admit of regularity and variety. The motions 
produced by machinery indicate the perfection or im- 
perfection of the mechanism, and may be better or 
worse adapted to their end, and from that derive their 
beauty or deformity. 

The colors of natural objects are commonly signs of 
some good or bad quality in the object ; or they may 
suggest to the imagination something agreeable or dis- 
agreeable. A number of clouds of different and ever- 
changing hue, seen on the ground of a serene azure 
sky at the going down of the sun, present to the eye of 
every man a glorious spectacle. It is hard to say, 
whether we should call it grand or beautiful. It is 
both in a high degree. Clouds towering above clouds, 
variously tinged, according as they approach nearer to 
the direct rays of the sun, enlarge our conceptions of 
the regions above us. They give us a view of the fur- 
niture of those regions, which, in an unclouded air, 
seem to be a perfect void ; but are now seen to contain 
the stores of wind and rain, bound up for the present, 
but to be poured down upon the earth in due season. 
Even the simple rustic does not look upon this beauti- 
ful sky merely as a show to please the eye, but as a 
happy omen of fine weather to come. 

3. If we consider, in the last place, the beauty of 
form or figure in inanimate objects, this, according to 
Dr. Hutcheson, results from regularity, mixed with va- 
riety. Here it ought to be observed, that regularity, in 
all cases, expresses design and art : for nothing regular 
was ever the work of chance; and where regularity is 
joined with variety, it expresses design more strongly. 
Besides, it has been justly observed, that regular figures 
are more easily and more perfectly comprehended by 
the mind than the irregular, of which we can never form 
an adequate conception. 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 477 

Although straight lines and plane surfaces have a 
beauty from their regularity, they admit of no variety, 
and therefore are beauties of the lowest order. Curve 
lines and surfaces admit of infinite variety, joined with 
every degree of regularity ; and therefore, in many 
cases, excel in beauty those that are straight. 

But the beauty arising from regularity and variety 
must always yield to that which arises from the fitness 
of the form for the end intended. In every thing made 
for an end, the form must be adapted to that end ; and 
every thing in the form that suits the end is a beauty ; 
every thing that unfits it for its end is a deformity. 
The forms of a pillar, of a sword, and of a balance, 
are very different. Each may have great beauty ; but 
that beauty is derived from the fitness of the form and 
of the matter for the purpose intended. 

The beauties of the vegetable kingdom are far supe- 
rior to those of inanimate matter, in any form which 
human art can give it. The beauties of the field, of 
the forest, and of the flower-garden, strike a child long 
before he can reason. He is delighted with what he 
sees ; but he knows not why. This is instinct, but it 
is not confined to childhood ; it continues through all 
the stages of life. It leads the florist, the botanist, the 
philosopher, to examine and compare the objects which 
nature, by this powerful instinct, recommends to his 
attention. By degrees he becomes a critic in beauties 
of this kind, and can give a reason why he prefers one 
to another. In every species he sees the greatest beauty 
in the plants or flowers that are most perfect in their 
kind, which have neither suffered from unkindly soil 
nor inclement weather ; which have not been robbed of 
their nourishment" by other plants, nor hurt by any 
accident. When he examines the internal structure of 
those productions of nature, and traces them from their 
embryo state in the seed to their maturity, he sees a 
thousand beautiful contrivances of nature, which feast 
his understanding more than their external form de- 
lighted his eye. 

In the animal kingdom we perceive still greater beau- 



478 TASTE. 

ties than in the vegetable. Here we observe life, and 
sense, and activity, various instincts and affections, and 
in many cases great sagacity. These are attributes of 
mind, and have an original beauty. As we allow to 
brute animals a thinking principle or mind, though far 
inferior to that which is in man, and as, in many of 
their intellectual and active powers, they very much 
resemble the human species, their actions, their mo- 
tions, and even their looks, derive a beauty from the 
powers of thought which they express. There is a 
wonderful variety in their manner of life ; and we find 
the powers they possess, their outward form, and their 
inward structure, exactly adapted to it. In every spe- 
cies, the more perfectly any individual is fitted for its 
end and manner of life, the greater is its beauty. 

But of all the objects of sense, the most striking and 
attractive beauty is perceived in the human species, and 
particularly in woman. Milton represents Satan him- 
self, in surveying the furniture of this globe, as struck 
with the beauty of the first happy pair. 

" Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, 
Godlike erect ! with native honor clad 
In naked majesty, seemed lords of all. 
And worthy seemed, for in their looks divine, 
The image of their glorious Maker, shone 
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure ; 
Severe, but in true filial freedom placed, 
Whence true authority in man ; though both 
Not equal, as their sex not equal, seemed ; 
Eor contemplation he and valor formed, 
For softness she, and sweet attractive grace." 

In this well-known passage of Milton, we see that 
this great poet derives the beauty of the first pair in 
paradise from those expressions of moral and intellectual 
qualities which appeared in their outward form and de- 
meanour. 

It cannot, indeed, be denied, that the expression of a 
fine countenance may be unnaturally disjoined from 
the amiable qualities which it naturally expresses : but 
we presume the contrary till we have clear evidence ; 
and even then we pay homage to the expression, as we 



ITS OBJECTS. BEAUTY. 479 

do to the throne when it happens to be unworthily 
filled.* 

* Of later works on the philosophy of taste, the following are among 
the most important: — Kant, Kritik der Urtheilskraft und Beobachtungen 
iiber das Gefilhl des SchOnen und Erhabenen (translated into French by J. 
Barni, Critique du Jugement, &c.) ; Schleiermacher, Vorlesungen tlber die 
jEsthetik ; Weisse, System der ^Esthetik als Wissenschaft von der Idee der 
Schonheit ; Hegel, Cours d? Esthetique analyse et traduit de I'Allemand, par 
M. Benard; Jouffroy, Cours d'Esthetique ; Alison's Essays on the Nature 
and Principles of Taste ; Stewart's Philosophical Essays, Part II. ; Knight's 
Analytical Inquiry into the Principles of Taste; Schiller's ^Esthetic Letters, 
Essays, &c, translated by J. Weiss ; Daniel's Philosophy of the Beautiful, 
from the French of Cousin. — Ed. 



APPENDIX. 



SIR W. HAMILTON'S DOCTRINE OF COMMON SENSE AND 
THEORY OF PERCEPTION. — NATURAL REALISM.— 
PRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE* 

Our cognitions, it is evident, are not all at second hand. 
Consequents cannot, by an infinite regress, be evolved out of 
antecedents, which are themselves only consequents. Demon- 
stration, if proof be possible, behooves to repose at last on 
propositions, which, carrying their own evidence, necessitate 
their own admission ; and which being, as primary, inexplica- 
ble, as inexplicable, incomprehensible, must consequently mani- 
fest themselves less in the character of cognitions than of facts, 
of which consciousness assures us under the simple form of 
feeling or belief 

Without at present attempting to determine the character, 
number, and relations — waiving, in short, all attempt at an 
articulate analysis and classification — of the primary elements 
of cognition, as carrying us into a discussion beyond our limits, 
and not of indispensable importance for the end we have in 
view ;t it is sufficient to have it conceded, in general, that such 

* This Appendix consists of selections from the Supplementary Disser- 
tations to Hamilton's edition of Reid, Notes A, B, and C. They will give, 
it is hoped, a faithful sketch of his doctrine on some of the cardinal points 
in his system ; but justice to the author — one of the most acute philoso- 
phers of the present age, and one of the most erudite philosophers of any 
age — requires that they should be read and studied in the connection in 
which they stand. Here, as elsewhere, the references of the author to his 
own Notes are retained, though but a small proportion, numerically con- 
sidered, have as yet appeared. — Ed. 

t Such an analysis and classification is, however, in itself certainly one 
of the most interesting and important problems of philosophy; and it is 

41 



482 APPENDIX. 

elements there are ; and this concession of their existence being 
supposed, I shall proceed to hazard some observations, princi- 
pally in regard to their authority as warrants and criteria of 
truth. Nor can this assumption of the existence of some origi- 
nal bases of knowledge in the mind itself be refused by any. 
For even those philosophers who profess to derive all our 
knowledge from experience, and who admit no universal truths 
of intelligence but such as are generalized from individual 
truths of fact, — even these philosophers are forced virtually to 
acknowledge, at the root of the several acts of observation from 
which their generalization starts, some law or principle to which 
they can appeal as guaranteeing the procedure, should the 
validity of these primordial acts themselves be called in ques- 
tion. This acknowledgment is, among others, made even by 
Locke ; and on such fundamental guarantee of induction he 
even bestows the name of Common Sense. 

Limiting, therefore, our consideration to the question of au- 
thority, how, it is asked, do these primary propositions, these 
cognitions at first hand, these fundamental facts, feelings, be- 
liefs, certify us of their own veracity ? To this the only pos- 
sible answer is, that, as elements of our mental constitution, as 
the essential conditions of our knowledge, they must by us be 

one in which much remains to be accomplished. Principles of cognition, 
which now stand as ultimate, may, I think, be reduced to simpler ele- 
ments ; and some, which are now viewed as direct and positive, may be 
shown to be merely indirect and negative ; their cogency depending, not 
on the immediate necessity of thinking them, — for if carried uncondition- 
ally out they are themselves incogitable, — but in the impossibility of 
thinking something to which they are directly opposed, and from which 
they are the immediate recoils. An exposition of the axiom, — that posi- 
tive thought lies in the limitation or conditioning of one or other of two 
opposite extremes, neither of which, as unconditioned, can be realized to 
the mind as possible, and yet of which, as contradictories, one or other 
must, by the fundamental laws of thought, be recognized as necessary; — 
the exposition of this great but unenounced axiom would show that some 
of the most illustrious principles are only its subordinate modifications, as 
applied to certain primary notions, intuitions, data, forms, or categories of 
intelligence, as Existence, Quantity (protensive, Time ; extensive, Space ; 
intensive, Degree), Quality, &c. Such modifications, for example, are the 
principles of Cause and Effect, Substance and Phenomenon, &c. 

I may here also observe, that, though the primary truths of fact and the 
primary truths of intelligence (the contingent and necessary truths of Eeid) 
form two very distinct classes of the original beliefs or intuitions of con- 
sciousness, there appears no sufficient ground to regard their sources as 
different, and therefore to be distinguished by different names. In this I 
regret that I am unable to agree with Mr. Stewart. See his Yemenis, 
Vol. II. Chap. I., and his Account of Reid, Sect. II., near the end. 



COMMON SENSE. 483 

accepted as true. To suppose their falsehood is to suppose 
that we are created capable of intelligence in oi'der to be made 
the victims of delusion ; that God is a deceiver, and the root 
of our nature a lie. But such a supposition, if gratuitous, is 
manifestly illegitimate. For, on the contrary, the data of our 
original consciousness must, it is evident, in the Jirst instance, 
be presumed true. It is only if proved false, that their authority 
can, in consequence of that proof, be, in the second instance, 
disallowed. 

Speaking, therefore, generally, to argue from common sense 
is simply to show, that the denial of a given proposition would 
involve the denial of some original datum of consciousness. In 
this case, as every original datum of consciousness is to be pre- 
sumed true, the proposition in question, as dependent on such 
a principle, must be admitted. 

This being understood, the following propositions are either 
self-evident, or admit of easy proof : — 

1. The end of philosophy is truth; and consciousness is the 
instrument and criterion of its acquisition. In other words, 
philosophy is the development and application of the consti- 
tutive and normal truths which consciousness immediately re- 
veals. 

2. Philosophy is thus wholly dependent upon consciousness ; 
the possibility of the former supposing the trustworthiness of the 
latter. 

3. Consciousness is to be presumed trustworthy, until proved 
mendacious. 

4. The mendacity of consciousness is proved, if its data, im- 
mediately in themselves, or mediately in their necessary conse- 
quences, be shown to stand in mutual contradiction. 

5. The immediate or mediate repugnance of any two of its 
data being established, the presumption in favor of the general 
veracity of consciousness is abolished, or rather reversed. For 
while, on the one hand, all that is not contradictory is not there- 
fore true ; on the other, a positive proof of falsehood, in one 
instance, establishes a presumption of probable falsehood in 
all ; for the maxim, " Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus" must 
determine the credibility of consciousness, as the credibility of 
every other witness. 

6. No attempt to show that the data of consciousness are 
(either in themselves or in their necessary consequences) mu- 
tually contradictory has yet succeeded ; and the presumption in 
favor of the truth of consciousness and the possibility of phi- 



484 APPENDIX. 

losophy has, therefore, never been redargued. In other words, 
an original, universal, dogmatic subversion of knowledge has 
hitherto been found impossible. 

7. No philosopher has ever formally denied the truth or dis- 
claimed the authority of consciousness ; but few or none have 
been content implicitly to accept and consistently to follow out 
its dictates. Instead of humbly resorting to consciousness, to 
draw from thence his doctrines and their proof, each dogmatic 
speculator looked only into consciousness, there to discover his 
preadopted opinions. In philosophy, men have abused the code 
of natural, as, in theology, the code of positive, revelation ; and 
the epigraph of a great Protestant divine on the book of Scrip- 
ture is certainly not less applicable to the book of conscious- 
ness : — 

" Hie liber est in quo quserit sua dogmata quisque; 
Invenit, et pariter dogmata quisque sua." 

8. The first and most obtrusive consequence of this procedure 
has been, the multiplication of philosophical systems in every 
conceivable aberration from the unity of truth. 

9. The second, but less obvious, consequence has been, the 
virtual surrender, by each several system, of the possibility of 
philosophy in general. For, as the possibility of philosophy 
supposes the absolute truth of consciousness, every system 
which proceeded on the hypothesis, that even a single deliver- 
ance of consciousness is untrue, did, however it might eschew 
the overt declaration, thereby invalidate the general credibility 
of consciousness, and supply to the skeptic the premises he 
required to subvert philosophy, in so far as that system repre- 
sented it. 

10. And yet, although the past history of philosophy has, in 
a great measure, been only a histoiy of variation and error 
{variasse erroris est) ; yet, the cause of this variation being 
known, we obtain a valid ground of hope for the destiny of 
philosophy in future. Because, since philosophy has hitherto 
been inconsistent with itself only in being inconsistent with the 
dictates of our natural beliefs, — 

"For Truth is catholic and Nature one," — 

it follows, that philosophy has simply to return to natural con- 
sciousness, to return to unity and truth. 

In doing this, we have only to attend to the three following 
maxims or precautions : — 



THEORY OF PERCEPTION. 485 

1°, That we omit nothing, not either an original datum of 
consciousness, or the legitimate consequence of such a datum ; 

2°, That we embrace all the original data of consciousness, 
and all their legitimate consequences ; and, 

3°, That we exhibit each of these in its individual integrity, 
neither distorted nor mutilated, and in its relative place, whether 
of preeminence or subordination. 

Nor can it be contended that consciousness has spoken in so 
feeble or ambiguous a voice, that philosophers have misappre- 
hended or misunderstood her enouncements. On the contrary, 
they have been usually agreed about the fact and purport of the 
deliverance, differing only as to the mode in which they might 
evade or qualify its acceptance. 

This I shall illustrate by a memorable example, — by one in 
reference to the very cardinal point of philosophy. In the act 
of sensible perception, I am conscious of two things ; — of my- 
self as the perceiving subject, and of an external reality, in 
relation with my sense, as the object perceived. Of the exist- 
ence of both these things I am convinced ; because I am con- 
scious of knowing each of them, not mediately in something 
else, as represented, but immediately in itself, as existing. Of 
their mutual independence I am no less convinced ; because 
each is apprehended equally, and at once, in the same indivisi- 
ble energy, the one not preceding or determining, the other 
not following or determined ; and because each is apprehended 
out of, and in direct contrast to, the other. 

Such is the fact of perception, as given in consciousness, and 
as it affords to mankind in general the conjunct assurance they 
possess of their own existence, and of the existence of an ex- 
ternal world. Nor are the contents of the deliverance, con- 
sidered as a phenomenon, denied by those who still hesitate to 
admit the truth of its testimony. 

The contents of the fact of perception, as given in con- 
sciousness, being thus established, what are the consequences 
to philosophy, according as the truth of its testimony (I.) is, or 
(II.) is not, admitted 1 

I. On the former alternative, the veracity of consciousness, 
in the fact of perception, being unconditionally acknowledged, 
we have established at once, without hypothesis or demonstra- 
tion, the reality of mind and the reality of matter ; while no 
concession is yielded to the skeptic, through which he may sub- 
vert philosophy in manifesting its self-contradiction. The one 

41* 



486 APPENDIX. 

legitimate doctrine, thus possible, may be called Natural Real- 
ism or Natural Dualism. 

II. On the latter alternative, Jive great variations from truth 
and nature may be conceived, — and all of these have actually 
found their advocates, — according as the testimony of con- 
sciousness, in the fact of perception, (A.) is wholly, or (B.) is 
partially, rejected. 

A. If wholly rejected, that is, if nothing but the phenomenal 
reality of the fact itself be allowed, the result is Nihilism. This 
may be conceived either as a dogmatical or as a skeptical opin- 
ion ; and Hume and Fichte have competently shown, that, if 
the truth of consciousness be not unconditionally recognized, 
Nihilism is the conclusion in which our speculation, if consist- 
ent with itself, must end. 

B. On the other hand, if partially rejected, four schemes 
emerge, according to the way in which the fact is tampered 
with. 

i. If the veracity of consciousness be allowed to the equi- 
poise of the subject and object in the act, but disallowed to the 
reality of their antithesis, the system of Absolute Identity 
(whereof Pantheism is the corollary) arises, which reduces 
mind and matter to phenomenal modifications of the same com- 
mon substance. 

ii., iii. Again, if the testimony of consciousness be refused^ 
to the equal originality and reciprocal independence of the sub- 
ject and object in perception, two unitarian schemes are deter- 
mined, according as the one or as the other of these correlatives 
is supposed the prior and genetic. Is the object educed from 
the subject ? Idealism ; is the subject educed from the object ? 
Materialism, is the result. 

iv. Finally, if the testimony of consciousness to our knowl- 
edge of an external world existing be rejected, with the Idealist, 
but, with the Realist, the existence of that world be affirmed ; 
we have a scheme which, as it by many various hypotheses 
endeavours, on the one hand, not to give up the reality of an 
unknown material universe, and, on the other, to explain the 
ideal illusion of its cognition, may be called the doctrine of 
Cosmothetic Idealism, Hypothetical Realism, or Hypothetical 
Dualism. This last, though the most vacillating, inconsequent, 
and self-contradictory of all systems, is the one which, as less 
obnoxious in its acknowledged consequences (being a kind of 
compromise between speculation and common sense), has 
found favor with the immense majority of philosophers. 



THEORY OF PERCEPTION. 487 

From the rejection of the fact of consciousness in this ex- 
ample of perception, we have thus, in the first place, multi- 
plicity, speculative variation, error ; in the second, systems 
practically dangerous ; and, in the third, the incompetence of 
an appeal to the common sense of mankind by any of these 
systems against the conclusions of others. 

Now, there are only two of the preceding theories of percep- 
tion, Avith one or other of which Reid's doctrine can possibly be 
identified. He is a Dualist ; — and the only doubt is, whether 
he be a Natural Realist, or a Hypothetical Realist, under the 
finer form of Egoistical Representationism. 

The cause why Reid left the character of his doctrine am- 
biguous on this the very cardinal point of his philosophy, is to 
be found in the following circumstances : — 

1°, That, in general, (although the same may be said of all 
other philosophers,) he never discriminated, either speculatively 
or historically, the three theories of Real Presentationism, of 
Egoistical, and of Non-Egoistical, Representationism. 

2°, That, in particular, he never clearly distinguished the first 
and second of these, as not only different, but contrasted, theo- 
ries. 

3°, That, while right in regarding philosophers, in general, as 
Cosmothetic Idealists, he erroneously supposed that they were 
all, or nearly all, Non-Egoistical Representationists. And, — 

4°, That he viewed the theory of Non-Egoistical Represen- 
tationism as that form alone of Cosmothetic Idealism which, 
when carried to its legitimate issue, ended in Absolute Idealism ; 
whereas the other form of Cosmothetic Idealism, the theory of 
Egoistical Representationism, whether speculatively or histori- 
cally considered, is, with at least equal rigor, to be developed 
into the same result. 

Dr. Thomas Brown considers Reid to be, like himself, a 
Cosmothetic Idealist, under the finer form of Egoistical Repre- 
sentationism ; but without assigning any reason for this belief, 
except one which, as I have elsewhere shown, is altogether 
nugatory.* For my own part, I am decidedly of opinion, that, 

* Edinburgh Review, Vol. LII. pp. 173-175. In saying, however, on 
that occasion, that Dr. Brown was guilty of "a reversal of the real and 
even unambiguous import " of Reid's doctrine of perception, I feci called 
upon to admit that the latter epithet is too strong ; — for, on grounds 
totally different from the untenable one of Brown, I am now about to 
show that Reid's doctrine on this point is doubtful. This admission docs 



488 APPENDIX. 

as the great end, the governing principle, of Reid's doctrine 
was to reconcile philosophy with the necessary convictions of 
mankind, he intended a doctrine of natural, consequently a 
doctrine of presentative, realism ; and that he would have at 
once surrendered, as erroneous, every statement which was 
found at variance with such a doctrine. 

The distinction of immediate and mediate cognition it is of 
the highest importance to establish ; for it is one without which 
the whole philosophy of knowledge must remain involved in 
ambiguities. What, for example, can be more various, vacil- 
lating, and contradictory, than the employment of the all-impor- 
tant terms object and objective, in contrast to subject and subjec- 
tive, in the writings of Kant ? — though the same is true of those 
of other recent philosophers. This arose from the want of a pre- 
liminary determination of the various, and even opposite, mean- 
ings of which these terms are susceptible, — a selection of the 
one proper meaning, — and a rigorous adherence to the mean- 
ing thus preferred. . But, in particular, the doctrine of Natural 
Realism cannot, without this distinction, be adequately under- 
stood, developed, and discriminated. Reid, accordingly, in 
consequence of the want of it, has not only failed in giving to 
his philosophy its precise and appropriate expression, he has 
failed even in withdrawing it from equivocation and confusion ; 
— insomuch, that it even remains a question, whether his doc- 
trine be one of Natural Realism at all. The following is a 
more articulate development of this important distinction than 
that which I gave some ten years ago ; and since, by more than 
one philosopher, adopted.*' 

1. A thing is known immediately or proximately, when we 
cognize it in itself ; mediately or remotely, when we cognize it 
in or through something numerically different from itself Im- 
mediate cognition, thus the knowledge of a thing in itself, in- 
volves the fact of its existence ; mediate cognition, thus the 
knowledge of a thing in or through something not itself, involves 
only the possibility of its existence. 

2. An immediate cognition, inasmuch as the thing known is 

not, however, imply that Brown is not, from first to last, — is not in one 
and all of his strictures on Reid's doctrine of perception, as there shown, — 
wholly in error. 

* See Edinburgh Review, Vol. LII. p. 166 et seq. ; Cross's Selections from 
the Edinburgh Review, Vol. III. p. 200 et seq.; Peisse, Fragments Philoso- 
phiques, p. 75 et seq. 



PRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 489 

itself presented to observation, may be called a presentative, 
and inasmuch as the thing presented is, as it were, viewed by 
the mind face to face, may be called an intuitive, cognition. — 
A mediate cognition, inasmuch as the thing known is held up 
or mirrored to the mind in a vicarious representation, may be 
called a representative * cognition. 

3. A thing known is called an object of knowledge. 

4. In a presentative or immediate cognition there is one sole 
object ; the thing (immediately) known and the thing existing 
being one and the same. — In a representative or mediate cog- 
nition there may be discriminated two objects ; the thing (imme- 
diately) known and the thing existing being numerically dif- 
ferent. 

5. A thing known in itself is the (sole) presentative or in- 
tuitive object of knowledge, or the (sole) object of a presenta- 
tive or intuitive knowledge. — A thing known in and through 
something else is the primary, mediate, remote, real, existent, 
or represented object of (mediate) knowledge, — objectum quod ; 
and a thing through ivhich something else is known is the sec- 
ondary, immediate, proximate, ideal,i vicarious, or representa- 
tive object of (mediate) knowledge, — objectum quo, or per quod. 
The former may likewise be styled objectum entitativum. 

6. The Ego as the subject of thought and knowledge is now 
commonly styled by philosophers simply the Subject ; and 
Subjective is a familiar expression for what pertains to the mind 
or thinking principle. In contrast and correlation to these, the 
terms Object and Objective are, in like manner, now in general 
use to denote the Non-Ego, its affections and properties, — and 
in general the Really existent as opposed to the Ideally known. 
These expressions, more especially Object and Objective, are 
ambiguous ; for though the Non-Ego may be the more frequent 



* The term Representation I employ always strictly, as in contrast to 
Presentation, and therefore with exclusive reference to individual objects, 
and not in the vague generality of Representatio or Vorstellung in the Leib- 
nitzian and subseqiient philosophies of Germany, where it is used for any 
cognitive act, considered, not in relation to what knows, but to what is 
known ; that is, as the genus, including under it Intuitions, Perceptions, 
Sensations, Conceptions, Notions, Thoughts proper, &c, as species. 

t I eschew, in general, the employment of the words Idea and Ideal, — 
they are so vague and various in meaning. (See Note G.) But they can- 
not always be avoided, as the conjugates of the indispensable term Ideal- 
ism. Nor is there, as I use them, any danger from their ambiguity ; for I 
always manifestly employ them simply for subjective (what is in or of the 
mind), in contrast to objective (what is out of, or external to, the mind). 



490 APPENDIX. 

and obtrusive object of cognition, still a mode of mind consti- 
tutes an object of thought and knowledge, no less than a mode 
of matter. Without, therefore, disturbing the preceding no- 
menclature, which is not only ratified, but convenient, I would 
propose that, when we wish to be precise, or where any am- 
biguity is to be dreaded, we should employ, — on the one hand, 
either the terms subject-object, or subjective object (and this we 
could again distinguish as absolute or as relative), — on the 
other, either object-object, or objective object. 

7. If the representative object be supposed (according to one 
theory) a mode of the conscious mind or self, it may be dis- 
tinguished as Egoistical; if it be supposed (according to 
another) something numerically different from the conscious 
mind or self, it may be distinguished as Non- Egoistical. The 
former theory supposes two things numerically different ; — 
1°, the object represented ; 2°, the representing and cognizant 
mind: the latter three; — 1°, the object represented; 2°, the 
object representing ; 3°, the cognizant mind. Compared merely 
with each other, the former, as simpler, may, by contrast to 
the latter, be considered, but still inaccurately, as an imme- 
diate cognition. The latter of these, as limited in its applica- 
tion to certain faculties, and now in fact wholly exploded, may 
be thrown out of account. 

8. External Perception, or Perception simply, is the faculty 
presentative or intuitive of the phenomena of the Non-Ego or 
Matter, — if there be any intuitive apprehension allowed of the 
Non-Ego at all. Internal Perception or Self- Consciousness is 
the faculty presentative or intuitive of the phenomena of the 
Ego or Mind. 

9. Imagination or Phantasy, in its most extensive meaning, 
is the faculty representative of the phenomena both of the ex- 
ternal and internal worlds. 

10. A representation considered as an object is logically, not 
really, different from a representation considered as an act. 
Here object and act are merely the same indivisible mode of 
mind viewed in two different relations. Considered by refer- 
ence to a (mediate) object represented, it is a representative 
object ; considered by reference to the mind representing and 
contemplating the representation, it is a representative act. A 
representative object, being viewed as posterior in the order of 
nature, but not of time, to the representative act, is viewed as 
a product ; and the representative act being viewed as prior in 
the order of nature, though not of time, to the representative 



PRESENTATIVE KNOWLEDGE. 491 

object, is viewed as a producing process. The same may be 
said of Image and Imagination. 

11. A thing to be known in itself must be known as actually 
existing ; and it cannot be known as actually existing unless it 
be known as existing in its When and its Where. But the 
When and Where of an object are immediately cognizable by 
the subject only if the When be now (i. e. at the same moment 
with the cognitive act), and the Where be here (i. e. within 
the sphere of the cognitive faculty) ; therefore a presentative 
or intuitive knowledge is only competent of an object present 
to the mind, both in time and in space. . 

12. E converso, — whatever is known, but not as actually 
existing now, and here, is known not in itself, as the presentative 
object of an intuitive, but only as the remote object of a repre- 
sentative, cognition. 

13. A representative object, considered irrespectively of what 
it represents, and simply as a mode of the conscious subject, is 
an intuitive or presentative object. For it is known in itself, as 
a mental mode, actually existing now and here. 

14. Consciousness is a knowledge solely of what is now and 
here present to the mind. It is therefore only intuitive, and its 
objects exclusively presentative. Again, Consciousness is a 
knowledge of all that is now and here present to the mind : 
every immediate object of cognition is thus an object of con- 
sciousness, and every intuitive cognition itself, simply a special 
form of consciousness. 

15. Consciousness comprehends every cognitive act ; in other 
words, whatever we are not conscious of, that we do not know. 
But consciousness is an immediate cognition. Therefore all 
our mediate cognitions are contained in our immediate. 

16. The actual modifications, the present acts and affections, 
of the Ego are objects of immediate cognition, as themselves 
objects of consciousness. (Pr. 14.) The past and possible 
modifications of the Ego are objects of mediate cognition, as 
represented to consciousness in a present or actual modification. 

17. The Primary Qualities of matter or body, now and here, 
that is, in proximate relation to our organs, are objects of imme- 
diate cognition to the Natural Realists ; of mediate, to the Cos- 
mothetic Idealists : the former, on the testimony of conscious- 
ness, asserting to mind the capability of intuitively perceiving 
what is not itself ; the latter denying this capability, but assert- 
ing to the mind the power of representing, and truly represent- 
ing, what it does not know. To the Absolute Idealists matter 



492 APPENDIX. 

has no existence as an object of cognition, either immediate or 
mediate. 

18. The Secondary Qualities of body now and here, as only 
present affections of the conscious subject, determined by an 
unknown external cause, are, on every theory, now allowed to 
be objects of immediate cognition. (Pr. 16.) 

19. As not now present in time, an immediate knowledge of 
the past is impossible. The past is only mediately cognizable 
in and through a present modification relative to, and represent- 
ative of, it, as having been. To speak of an immediate knowl- 
edge of the past involves a contradiction in adjecto. For to 
know the past immediately, it must be known in itself; — and 
to be known in itself, it must be known as now existing. But 
the past is just a negation of the now-existent ; its very notion, 
therefore, excludes the possibility of its being immediately 
known. — So much for Memory, or Recollective Imagination. 

20. In like manner, supposing that a knowledge of the future 
were competent, this can only be conceived possible in and 
through a now present representation ; that is, only as a medi- 
ate cognition. For, as not yet existent, the future cannot be 
known in itself, or as actually existent. As not here present, 
an immediate knowledge of an object distant in space is like- 
wise impossible.* For, as beyond the sphere of our organs 
and faculties, it cannot be known by them in itself; it can only, 
therefore, if known at all, be known through something differ- 
ent from itself, that is, mediately, in a reproductive or a con- 
structive act of imagination. 

21. A possible object — an ens rationis — is a mere fabri- 
cation of the mind itself; it exists only ideally in and through 
an act of imagination, and has only a logical existence, apart 
from that act with which it is really identical. (Pr. 10.) It is 
therefore an intuitive object in itself; but in so far as not involv- 
ing a contradiction, it is conceived as prefiguring something 
which may possibly exist somewhere and some-when, — this 
something, too, being constructed out of elements which had 
been previously given in Presentation, — it is Representative. 
See Note C, § 1. 

* On the assertions of Eeid, Stewart, &c, that the mind is immediately 
percipient of distant objects, see Note B, \ 2, and Note C, § 2. 



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